Gadgetory

you don't have to pay top dollar for a great smartphone anymore lots of companies are selling really nice phones for hundreds of dollars less than the flagships from Apple and Samsung no company has pushed this harder than one plus and it's one plus two might be the best smartphone deal you can get the oneplus 2 follows the oneplus one which came out roughly a year and a half ago it carries on the idea of a high-end smartphone with a price tag that's well below an iphone or galaxy s6 but the two is a better device in almost every way than the one better design has a nicer display a better camera and has a faster processor and it's still really cheap you can get one for as low as 329 bucks though most people are probably going to want the 389 dollar 64 gig model despite its price the oneplus 2 is really well built phone that can go toe-to-toe with most any full-price flagship it's got a nice metal frame clean lines and it's solid feeling but not too heavy the default back cover has a sandpaper like finish that I really liked it reminds me a lot of the grip tape on a skateboard and has a similar effect in keeping a large phone from slipping out of my hands you can also swap that back for wooden design or other materials and oneplus is selling a handful of these for about 25 bucks a pop there's no getting around it though that the oneplus 2 is a big phone it's between the iPhone 6 and the 6 plus and notably bigger than the galaxy s6 it's big enough that I find it mostly uncomfortable to use in one hand but not too big to fit in my pockets that's largely thanks to its 5.5 inch 1080p display it's considerably improved over at predecessor it's the same size and resolution as before but it's brighter punchier and has better viewing angles other phones may have more pixels but I didn't really miss them here there are three other things of note in the oneplus 2 S Hardware it's got a fingerprint scanner that acts as a home button and as a way to unlock your phone without a password it's accurate but it's not as quick or responsive as ones I've used on Samsung or Apple devices there's also a cool hardware notification switch which is kind of like the ringer switch on an iPhone it's awesome maybe my favorite thing about the oneplus 2 the last hardware curiosity is its USB type-c port which is the only way to actually charge the phone the two comes with one USB type-c cable and one plus of selling extras for only five bucks but there's a good chance you don't have any just lying around your house like you might with standard microUSB cables you also won't be able to easily find replacements in a store if you're traveling or forget to pack one these likely won't be problems in a year or so but right now they're valid concerns and make using the one plus more annoying than it should be fortunately the battery life on the oneplus 2 is solid I'm able to go a full day of use without much issue some people might even be able to go a couple of days without charging I really wish you had fast charging though as it is now it takes three hours of charged on one plus two while other Android phones can charge fully in about a third of that performance is also really great the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor and four gigabytes of RAM never feel like they're stressed and the phone is responsive for most anything I needed to do oneplus software is also really light it's a slightly modified version of standard android 5.1 with a few minor tweaks but it's mostly a stock experience the two new camera is a 13 megapixel unit with optical image stabilization and laser assisted autofocus it's a much better camera than on the oneplus one and it's capable of taking great shots and good to medium light it can struggle in low-light though and it's not as good as the s6 or LG g4 in those situations it's also a bit slow there's a noticeable lag when taking a picture than annoying processing time between shots oneplus has promised a software updates are coming to improve the camera software and performance and I hope they specifically address that lag but overall there's really a lot to like about the oneplus 2 it's well designed performs well and is really cheap but that's where the slight hang-up is it's still really hard to buy a oneplus 2 if you're interested in it the process involves signing up for an invite and waiting for the opportunity to spend your money on it that's probably enough of a roadblock for a lot of people to just go find something else but for those that are patient the oneplus 2 is a nice reward