Gadgetory

the one place to gossip begins one of its biggest challenges one of Samsung's finest phones to date this is Joshua Carr from Android authority what's going on everybody and this is the oneplus 2 versus the Samsung Galaxy s6 design is a big button topic for both of these devices as both companies made some real changes to their formulas the Samsung Galaxy s6 is still a Samsung device through and through in shape and button layout and it includes the fingerprint reader embedded in the iconic home button though no real surprises to be found until material choices are put into play a metal chassis frame and dual glass panel construction make this one of the first galaxy s devices to no longer sport a removable backing which has been a bummer to most this is because the removable battery and the micro SD card slot have gone by the wayside that said however this is one of the most premium and sleekest feeling galaxy s devices we've seen in health now five point one inches in the screen size keep the phone from feeling either too small nor too big which is a boon to those who require good handling experiences from their high-end smartphones and though the glass construction might make this phone one of the most fingerprint prone this phone is now considered the beginning of Samsung's past year of good design now the oneplus 2 also made some changes mainly in adding a metallic frame of its own the metal does a good job of making this phone feel quite premium and the stock sandstone black material differentiates it from basically any other phone in the market the 2 now has a slightly smaller footprint compared to the original which helps in handling because the 5.5 inch screen does toe the line of comfort buttons and design elements around the device deserve mention especially the alert slider on the left side the slowest slider works as a notification toggle and an easy way of silencing the phone the home button is recessed now and flanked by back in recent apps buttons though the real story is the fingerprint reader smack dab in the middle that is always firing this makes for an easy way of unlocking the phone even when the screen is off and finally on the bottom the move to USB type-c for the charging port is a change that might take some getting used to the new cord means that all microUSB cables go in a drawer or more commonly the oneplus cable is always on the mind just so you don't forget it the galaxy s6 despite being pretty different now still has a classic Samsung feel the metal and glass does remove a couple of key features but the result is still one of the most attractive yet accessible packages available even if it might be a little delicate oneplus does make the backing removable in the two with replacement materials available for a customizable look but even it cannot boast microSD card support or replaceable batteries but it is in display is that we see some real differences between these devices as the Samsung Galaxy s6 sports quad HD in a 5.1 inch screen the Super AMOLED display brings incredible colors and makes everything look great from gaming to text to videos and with a 2560 by 1440 resolution in the conventional size of a screen performance and enjoyment or where a flagship smartphone should be now it is true that the s6 edge and the larger s6 edge+ bring curved sides to the phone but aside from helping with handling their additions don't add much to what is already a pretty good display experience compare that to the 5.5 inch screen on the oneplus 2 which does not come with a quad HD display likely to keep the cost down for this year's iteration people may not have been very happy with this choice for the oneplus 2 but that doesn't mean that the display isn't great still a bit more color and brightness has been added in for an even more enjoyable experience which does just as well with all the same tasks as the galaxy s6 does typical users will not be able to tell the difference between full and quad HD so there is little reason to think that the oneplus 2 is so far back from the s6 in the display department unless you are really speck hangry the main thing the galaxy s6 has over the oneplus 2 is higher color saturation because for many users more coloration means more enjoyment so Samsung definitely has that portion locked down but we will give the oneplus 2 marks for still being a really good display experience even if quad HD is the flagship box that it just cannot tick off performance though is really no problem for either of these phones as the current best of Qualcomm Snapdragon Series goes up against a very powerful Samsung made SOC the Snapdragon 810 powers the oneplus 2 which includes 4 gigabytes of RAM and the audrina 434 graphics now there's no doubt that sheer power is available due to the a-10 and oxygen OS can mostly be to blame for any of the little bugs and stutters that we have thus far seen in use which games don't have any trouble running and the same goes for pretty much any other tasks for work and play moving around various apps in the recent apps screen is as much a breeze as it needs to be the same can be said for the ik sino 7420 that is found in the galaxy s6 the coming out party for Samsung's own processing packages now found across the board Samsung is putting faith in its in-house processor to bring the performance that users need with 4 gigabytes of RAM multitasking is not hard at all even with features like the S window and the multi window demanding more than just moving in and out of the recent map screen and with the tone down TouchWiz software suite it isn't hard to see just how fast this phone can go when everything Samsung used to throw in your face is finally removed or at least hidden from view performance is one place where we do see the oneplus 2 really standing toe-to-toe with current flagships as it manages to keep up with the powerful XE notes found in the s6 oxygen OS still needs a few bug fixes here and there but once it is optimized we have no doubt that the day-to-day experience of the two will be as sublime as it is in the Samsung phone now a flagship killer has to provide the same overall features as the competition at the very least and the oneplus 2 definitely has a lot to offer in its extra hardware it starts with the fingerprint reader embedded underneath the recessed home button which works quite well to unlock the phone without having to wake it while we did have some trouble with pressing the home button and getting the fingerprint to register properly these issues only happens from time to time the second big addition is the alert slider which basically does what it sets out to switches among the different notification modes of lollipop which are all priority or none if you aren't already the kind of person that keeps the phone on silent all the time the alert slider might be your best friend as it is easy to feel for and toggle when on a table or in the pocket so silencing the phone is a quick and easy task dual-sim capabilities might be a little lost on users in the West but when you need to take calls on one card and receive your data on the other the oneplus 2 is able to handle such tasks out of the box Travel will be the main use case scenario here but we already have a couple of people in the Android authority ranks that require a sim for data and assume for everything else and the oneplus 2 has delivered for them USB type-c is the new charging standard but there are some issues with the implementation mainly the fact that it is not fast charging yes despite the Snapdragon 810 built-in quick charge is not available for usage wireless charging and NFC go by the wayside making this a phone that requires a tether for any and all related tasks that said though we have seen some great battery life from the oneplus 2 the 3300 milliamp hour battery brought us as much as five hours of screen on time in a typical day but taking the long time to charge the device might be the compromise that users will have to make the galaxy s6 brings its own suite of features and it starts with all the wireless capabilities wireless charging is available out of the box and fast charging is a benefit many users have come to rely upon you may have to though as the 2550 million power battery brings a pretty standard amount of longevity to typical days the compromise here swings the other way as the average battery life can easily be replenished in about an hour Samsung's own fingerprint reader is embedded in the tactile home button meaning that waking the phone by pressing it is required that said it is just as fast as oneplus as iteration and posed its own infrequent reading issues making both of our devices pretty much tie in testing and as Samsung tries to make phones that do everything the heart rate sensor on the back of the phone returns and comes with an updated version of s health it is nice to check heart rate or even stress levels from time to time though we will stop short of calling it a complete health tool for anyone really serious about fitness so its heart rate monitoring or ringtone monitoring fast charging or larger battery capacity and finding a dual sim model or having it out of the box in hardware it's a toss-up but we do give oneplus a lot of credit for closing the gap in this particular aspect the oneplus 2 had one place to truly excel in order to be considered a real flagship killer the camera and at first glance it isn't off to a great start the camera app is a modified version of the Google camera and misses a number of modes and manual controls that have become commonplace and plenty of this year's high-end releases manual controls and perhaps a raw capture mode would be needed to make this a true camera companion for anyone serious about photography and even then the camera app isn't the fastest we've seen despite the additions of OIS and laser autofocus in the camera package autofocus does see a little bit of an improvement despite the Oh is getting stifled by the camera app which typically goes for slower shutter speeds and that basically stifles the stabilization we have been told that an update to the camera software will include manual controls and further optimizations but honestly those don't seem to come soon enough now before we get into picture quality let's contrast the camera applications the galaxy s6 benefits from a long pedigree of full-featured camera packages and with optical image stabilization this 16 megapixel shooter boasts not only manual controls but plenty of other modes that can take advantage of what has historically been very good camera quality the manual mode does add quite a bit of control even if it isn't as granular as a couple of other cameras we've seen in the market by far the best part of the galaxy s6 camera is the speed of opening and using it DoubleTap the home button and you're ready to go with capture speed pretty much where it needs to be for fast shooting the oneplus 2 delivers some good photos without really going for and beyond for most pictures when zoomed out the pictures look great for a myriad of uses like social media but zoom in even a little bit and the lack of detail can be observed the galaxy s6 manages to get a little more detail out of its pictures though its coloration can be a little much for any photography purists HDR is often up to interpretations by all companies and in the oneplus 2 we do see quite a bit more dynamic range as dark areas or brightened and vice-versa though the s6 might not be as drastic in its HDR mode it is still more detailed than the shots found in the oneplus 2 and in low-light shots the main issue is the oneplus 2 application choosing those really slow shutter speeds over anything else OAS is unable to do its job if the hands have to remain steady for longer than a fraction of a second and as a result the already very grainy low-light shots are not only motion blurred out but more importantly tougher to capture though we would like to see someone surpass even Samsung in the smartphone camera department we definitely are not going to see it getting killed by the camera of the oneplus 2 and finally in software we see a stripping down of user interfaces starting with Samsung there was a renaissance of sorts when much of what we called bloat in TouchWiz simply disappeared gone are the large amount of tutorials that we'll get in the users face and quite a few of the built-in extras can actually be disabled like the briefing on News homescreen what results is probably the most accessible version of Samsung's software to date but the usable features are mostly from multitasking like the multi window which brings the same abilities as before for anyone that needs to do two things at once the S window is still available by dragging down from the top corner but TouchWiz actually isn't in a hurry to make you use it for most intents and purposes oxygen is a modified stock Android interface with a few additions built in these include the gestures for the turned off screen and the ability to change up the capacitive keys for on-screen soft keys app permissions do come in oxygen ahead of the marshmallow release and though they may not be used all the time anyone interested in security will appreciate the insight and finally for the daily use case the Shelf is oxygens version of an extra homescreen that houses a number of user-defined widgets under frequently used applications and frequently contacted contacts now don't get us wrong we love stock Android and oneplus has done a good job of leveraging it to Oxygen's advantage but TouchWiz has been through a renaissance that brings tons of functionality and as Spartan a package as we've ever seen it oxygen does have some issues with certain bugs and stutters but they should be fixed with upcoming updates but we'll make the oneplus package even better is software that is as different on the inside as the phone already is on the outside but price has the potential to be a real trump card one that oneplus has been able to leverage before at $329 the two is almost half the price of the galaxy s6 which can go as high as $700 for the s6 edge and 579 for the s6 proper but as far as being a flagship killer that is a name that the oneplus 2 just doesn't live up to this year while it is able to match the performance and even the hardware packages of many current flagship smartphones it doesn't do enough to really excel and surpass phones like the galaxy s6 the lack of quad HD is a small difference in hindsight but for us here at Android authority the lack of quality in the camera simply puts the oneplus 2 behind not to mention a few other features that Samsung's phones can boast fast charging wireless charging and the ability to leverage upcoming Wireless forms of payments despite some forward-thinking in the new USB port standard and the inclusion of the alert slider and either our killer features that really put the oneplus 2 higher than any of the rest of the competition now the price of the oneplus 2 makes it a compelling choice if the extras of the galaxy s6 don't do it for you but you get what you pay for and what the oneplus 2 lacks makes its price point makes sense rather than making it the killer that it claims to be as always thank you guys very much for watching and I hope you enjoyed this vs. between the oneplus 2 and the Samsung Galaxy s6 if there was one flagship that the oneplus 2 had to be pitted against it was the s6 now even though the oneplus 2 is unable to live up to the name flagship killer it did stand toe-to-toe to the s6 in a number of key aspects but the overall quality of the s6 package especially when you consider its camera are really what we put points into in favor of the s6 that being said however the lower price of the oneplus 2 is pretty compelling so if that is what you require out of your smartphone then more power to you as the oneplus 2 is a pretty good bang for bug smart phone still with all of that make sure you stay tuned to Android for even more and further comparisons of the oneplus 2 against the rest of the flagships also check out all of our coverage from Aoife in Berlin including the Sony Xperia z5 premium and the Samsung gear s2 and then don't forget to check out our weekly shows listen to the Android thority podcast and then when you're done with all of that head on over to android authority comm for our forums and even more because we are your source for all things Android