Editorials
5 Reasons Not to Buy OnePlus 2 Smartphone
Currently in the smartphone industry there is one hot topic that has been going on a debate, whether or not the new OnePlus 2 is a killer device of 2015. But if you go with what company claims, they’re marketing their new device as flagship killer of 2016. I have had the chance to use the device for a week, and over that period my experience was quite overwhelming. Though, on the first day I was pretty excited with the on-paper specification and the idea of using a future proof device. But what I didn’t expect to happen was that my opinion would change a lot after using it for a week. It went from good to bad in a week. Below is my feedback on why OnePlus 2 is not a phone of 2015.
USB Type-C
I like to stay practical to the core rather than living in the future, and it was not at all pleasant when I was using the OnePlus 2 as my daily driver. I don’t carry travel adapter of any smartphone that I’m taking home from my Office. So, it was quite inconvenient when I had to take the proprietary charger of OP2 and its cable to the home. And whenever I forgot to take those things, there was no alternative way to charge my device. So, there’s that annoyance.
Since, the USB Type-C ports are still in its early stage of being implemented on the laptops (currently only on Macbook 12). So, there was no option for me to charge the device, unless and until I rush back to my office in the late night just for a charger. And if the port has been a microUSB, there won’t be any issue, of course. You see how impractical a USB Type-C port is on a smartphone for the current standard.
No Cyanogen OS
Let it reflect that Oxygen OS is not close to offering custom functionalities that have been offered by the Cyanogen OS. I knew that Cyanogen is not coming back on the next OnePlus device since there new partnership forfeited them to do so in India, but it was later followed by the end of relationship between them.
The Cyanogen OS was the USP of the OPO in terms of personalizing the device while I don’t see Oxygen OS do the same magic for OP2. It might be liked by the Android stock users, but introducing a flagship Killer means there should be custom elements present on the device that would allow you to play with features, and that is what absent from the new UI on the OP2.
Invites System
Why should I have to get an invite to buy a smartphone that I like? This was the question I have been asked by users all the time. It all started with the first device from OnePlus, where you had to get an invite and would only be able to purchase the device using that invite. Carrying the system forward, the team claimed that they’ve improvised their invite system.
We have been witnessing the need of invites on our social media platform, and people are going crazy for the invites. The company claimed that they would be upping their inventory by 30-50 times from the last year. But looking at the current registration pace for the invites, which has reached to 4.5 million +, the invites hasn’t been rolled out to many users with a good position in the list. I was one of them, and I didn’t have my invite until recently. Sharing your invite link and being active on OnePlus Forum is said to give you invite faster, but that hasn’t been true at all. Your number might increase in the position with all hard work you have done, but eventually, it depends on your luck.
Invite system might be working to create a hype of a smartphone, but it isn’t creating a trust among the people who want to buy the device. Because at the end of the day, it is hard for many interested buyers to get those invites easily. OnePlus may actually be killing their own sales with this invite system.
No NFC
OnePlus after researching claimed that their most of the OnePlus One (OPO) users were not using the NFC connectivity feature. And this was the reasoning given by Carl Pei when asked why there is no NFC feature on the new OP2. To be honest, that is true for most of the users because the company is growing fast in regions where NFC is not a popular connectivity feature. And it might have been a good reasoning if this is not claimed to be a future proof smartphone.
Today, many countries are still adopting the mobile payments system, but with the pace of companies introducing their dedicated payment’s system like Samsung Pay, it wouldn’t be too far that we see full use of NFC connectivity for our daily payments. Though, currently it might not be a deal breaker for people living in Asian countries. But it certainly would be a deal breaker for citizens of the United States where mobile payments are the large part of financial transactions. Moreover, if you don’t know, the Google Wallet is a pretty popular service in the US.
As well I recall, Android 6.0 Marshmallow has introduced an Android Pay feature, which would fully utilize the NFC connectivity for mobile payments. It means in a next Nexus device we would see this feature, and as well as it is anticipated to become a trend in next year.
Battery Issues
The battery life has been one of the greatest on the OPO, and I adored that device for its SOT, which was more than 6 hours for me. But that was drastically stepped down to around 4 hours of SOT on the OP2. I remind you that the new device packs 3300mAh capacity battery while the first device packed 3100mAh capacity battery. So, technically, it should give a better battery performance than its predecessor.
Moreover, there is no fast charging option available on the device, which would have cost company only a few bucks. Justifying this as a cost cutting would not be a good idea if the company is planning to do that.
Currently, the device takes at least 150 minutes to charge fully from the zero percent, which is not an ideal charging time for a flagship device. You can find more details in our review of the device.