One Week with OnePlus2

I totally missed the OnePlus One bandwagon (in fact, only heard of OnePlus a few months ago!). But since then have been following the hype aroundOnePlus2 (henceforth referred to as OP2) with some interest and so I was thrilled when I managed to get an invite for OP2 few weeks back (apparently, the wait list is 4 million long). The unit finally arrived last week and after using it for about a week, here are my thoughts.

Rather than focus on factual elements like specs, memory, storage etc (plenty has been written about those), I’ll focus on (often minor) issues I encountered when using OP2 with my usual workflows.

Oh one more caveat: most of my experience is comparing against my current phone, the 2014 Moto X.

Hardware

• This is a big phone, no doubt about not. Not massive, but larger than I’d like.
• Build quality is awesome. The phone feels hefty, but in a premium sort of way.
• OnePlus has nailed packaging and branding. Everything including the cables and the box look fantastic.
• Battery life is slightly better compared to my Moto X. Not sure how things would look after 6 months though.
• I love how much less bright the OP2 display can become compared to the Moto X. This should be really good for battery and I found it a lot easier on the eyes especially when it is dark.
• The hardware buttons for back/recents are a mixed bag. You do get some extra real estate (in portrait mode) with them, but then using them in landscape is a bit cumbersome. They also vibrate on every keypress for some haptic feedback which I didn’t care for, and annoyingly, could not find a way to disable. I did like being able to add custom actions for long-press and double tap, but did not find them using much in practice.
• The fingerprint sensor is good, but not great. Again, I suspect software issues (see more below).

Software

• Despite having a beast of a spec (Snapdragon 810! 4-GB RAM!), typing constantly felt sluggish. Almost seemed like the OS was deliberately adding some delay lest things appear too quickly! I’m assuming this is a software issue because if not, something is really amiss.
• Many many small bugs/differences in OxygenOS compared to stock Android that just kept adding a tiny bit of friction here and there. No one thing matters much on its own, but taken together they had a noticeable impact on my experience. Here are a few examples
• Usually when you swipe down from the top, you see app notifications and double swiping expands the settings tray. On Oxygen, the single swipe would expand the config tray first, often pushing app notifications so far down that I’d need to scroll up. Super annoying!
• Google Now Launcher kept crashing (I did not like the Shelf feature in OxygenOS much, nor their default launcher)
• PocketCasts’ light theme did not work (kept showing up as dark). When I filed a bug report, I was told this was a PocketCast bug that they should fix. I was convinced this was an Oxygen bug and indeed, with the 2.0.1 update, this fixed itself!
• Fingerprint sensor worked almost all the time if I tried to unlock directly without pressing the power button first. However, if I pressed the power button (which brings up the lock screen), unlocking via fingerprint almost never worked for me.
• This surprised me: there are a few Moto X features that I’m so used to that I just assumed they were standard on stock Android. And boy, did I miss them terribly on OP2. Here are a few:
• Moto Actions like twisting the wrist to open the camera, or doing a karate-chop in the air to start the flash light, or just waving notifications away or approaching the phone to show time + notifications
• Active Display. Note that Nexus 6 has something similar calledAmbient Display but this is not available on OP2.

Parting Words

OnePlus2 is a fantastic device, no doubt about that. Kudos to their branding and marketing teams for creating a phenomenal hype machine. “2016 Flagship Killer” is indeed an audacious claim, but whether OP2 meets that bar, time will tell. Me, I’m sticking to my Moto X for now but looking forward to the rumored Nexus 5 refresh in a few months.