OnePlus 2 Review & Why I'm Dissapointed

I have to start with a disclaimer that a) I'm not a professional reviewer and this is probably my first and longest review I've done and b) I'm an avid OnePlus supported, I think what they've done is amazing and I truly hope they keep working on getting us top notch devices in such a great prices, I got the One on September last year and I got the Two a week ago and have been using it full time just a few days.

The Pros or Neutral:

• The OnePlus Two feels more like an improved version of the One, thank like a brand new device, in terms of size and weight is pretty much the same, except that the Two is a better looking one, I think removing the aluminum gloss was a hit and the more magnesium surrounding gives it a very elegant highlight.


• The styleswaps gives the phone a sens of personalization that I love, I got the Kevlar one and I really love the look and the feel of it.


• Talking about the phone, I've had just a few days of use, but I certainly feel the power of the new processor where every action and app is super smooth, gaming, browsing, reading emails, I can truly see the difference


• Also I can see the difference in the camera, though it has the same megapixels as the One, I certainly can see the effect of both the laser focus and the 1.3µm light-collecting pixels, plus the speed of taking the picture is really great. Please understand I cannot consider myself even an amateur photographer, all I know about pictures is if I like them or not.


• I love being able to turn on the screen and unlock it with the fingerprint reader, this gives it a sens of security and speed without needing to type your password / pin / pattern every time you need to do something in the phone


• The notification toggle is a really nice feature where you have a physical toggle to turn on/off the notifications. Even more, I love that they introduced "Alarms Only" as one of the toggle positions allowing you a true usable "Silent Mode" with it.


• The battery life seems to be really good, a bit better than the One's which was already pretty good.

Cons or Not so Neutral

• OxygenOS. I mean seriously, one of the great features of the One was it's tight integration with CM, where we could get a special build of CM powering our great phone. OxygenOS limits the posibilities you had with CM. Some of the things I miss (with just a couple of days of use) from the One / don't like from OxygenOS are:
  1. Ringtones, seriously? I mean I understand you will get different tones but OxygenOs has a VERY limited number of ringtones
  
  
  2. Camera App. The one with OxygenOS is VERY bad, with not as many features / configurations as the one provided in CM for the One
  
  
  3. No way to switch from notification profiles OS level (without the physical toggle). I like the physical toggle, but I also want to be able to change these in the OS
  
  
  4. All volume controles grouped together. I mean, I need to be able to move the volume of media without there needing to be media playing, in CM I could expand the control when using the volume rocker and change Notifications / Media / Alarms volume in the same place
  
  


• Impossibility to change ROMs. I know there are a few ROMs out there, including CM, however to be honest, moving to any ROM, at this point, is like going back to the One. For me, besides the CPU power, the two main features are the fingerprint reader and the laser focus, both which there is no support, yet, in any other ROM.


• USB Type C. I love the fact that OnePlus is on the edge of technology, and maybe in the future this would be a simply required feature, however at this point, using USB Type C requires me to either buy a whole bunch of cables or buy a whole bunch of addapters, since I have a cable everywhere in my house/office


• The phone gets warm. It's a fact, no matter how much reviewers, OnePlus and even Qualcomm, have tried to convince us this is not an issue, THIS IS AN ISSUE. The one would get warm if I'm charging the phone and at the same time I'm doing intensive actions (gaming, playing multimedia, etc), however if I'm just doing regular use to the phone, and even playing, it would not get warm (or not that much that starts getting uncomfortable). The Two, even if you are just browsing, facebook, twitter, it gets warm and as soon as you start doing intensive tasks, it starts getting uncomfortable


• Quality of the phone: I love the new looks (as explained in the Pros), however I have to say that I dropped it ONCE and the edges are now pretty damaged. This might have been a bad luck on how the phone felt, but my One had similar drops and I can barely notice them in the outside.


• Volume: It seems to be that the general volume of the device is WAY less than it was on the One, I got used to have my notifications in the lowest possible and still listen to it almost anywhere, and now, I need to have the two way up in the volume to have similar results.


• The fingerprint reader is not what I was sold by. It is certainly not fast (I have never used the Iphone nor any other reader, this is just my opinion on how I feel it when I'm using it) and it constantly fails to the point that I have to unlock it with my pin and the next time it would work ok.


• Placement of the rockers. I really loved, and got used to, having the volume rockers on the left and the on/off on the right, it really doesn't make sense to have the rockers on the right.

All and all, it is a great device, and if you did not get the One and are coming from an old device, it truly make sense to get it and I'm sure you will enjoy it a lot, but I have to say I'm very disappointing at this point for the simple reason that I feel that I got a very few improvements from the One, but mostly it doesn't provide enough new features improvements to make it worth spending the money just a year after I got the one, plus it has some problems that really make it worst than the One.