OnePlus Phone

general
1

I’m not sure if I’m breaking any rules by posting this, but I figured, since some of you need a phone with dual sim, you may be interested. Link to the madness below.

One Plus 2 - Invites/Details

OnePlus just launched their second phone yesterday through a VR experience that was pretty cool. If your unfamiliar, it might be because they’re a tech startup that released it’s first phone last year. A friend of mine got me interested in them and I’ve been following them ever since. I’d suggest taking a look if you’re in the market for a new phone. From what I understand, it’s $329 for 16GB variant and $389 for the 64GB variant. Here’s the specs:

  • 5.5" 1080p Display / 401 PPI
  • Snapdragon™ 810 Qualcomm
  • 4GB LPDDR4 RAM
  • Adreno™ 430 Mobile GPU
  • 64 GB eMMC 5.0 Storage
  • 13 MP Camera w/ Dual LED Flash / 1.3µm Pixels / f/2.0 Aperture
  • Fingerprint Security (Faster than Apple’s apparently)
  • 3,300 mAh LiPo battery
  • Connection:
    GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900MHz
    WCDMA: Bands: 1/2/4/5/8
    FDD-LTE: Bands: 1/2/4/5/7/8/12/17
  • Bluetooth 4.1
  • USB-C Charging
  • OxygenOS (Their version of Android 5.1, but you can clear it, if you feel so inclined, I think. From it’s customization options and general lack of screwing around with Android (think TouchWiz), I’d probably just leave it there.)
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2

It doesn’t have a micro SD slot. :frowning: It sounds very nice otherwise.

3

Yeah, that’s what kept me from pulling the trigger on the current Moto X. Hopefully, the 2015 model will be introduced/released in the next month or so and have a Micro SD slot. But the OnePlus 2 is tempting, too.

EDIT: I should have checked Ars earlier… MicroSD - Check! Looks like I’m going to have a tough decision coming up, because the OnePlus and Moto X are both very appealing.

4

Yeah, unfortunately I think MicroSD is becoming a thing of the past with phones these days. I’m seeing the functionality in less and less phones, but I believe that’s due to the phones they used to be on only holding such a small amount of data to begin with.

5

When I got my Galaxy S4, the 16GB model was the only one I could find locally. I think a 32GB model was theoretically available, but I’ve never seen one available in person.

Of the internal memory, 6.26GB is in use by the system, and another 1.15GB listed as Cached data. After frequently used apps and other multimedia, I currently have 1.26GB internal free. (I believe some apps, like Amazon Music, Google Music, UltaVioliet, etc., restrict media to internal storage.)

I have a 64GB MicroSD inside, which stores most of my multimedia and apps that I don’t use everyday (at least, whatever parts of the apps that the OS will allow to be offloaded). I have about half of that free, but I didn’t copy all of my music to it, and moved some photos off a while back.

6

It’s the water resistance of the new Moto phones that appeals to me. I’ve not, yet, lost a phone to water, but the wife has, and it’s only a matter of time before Havok Jr does too. If they have Qi support then they just became the next upgrade…

7

AFAIK, no wireless charging, but it does have the turbo charge feature.

EDIT: Also, sorry about hijacking your thread, @PadrinoFive7

8

I don’t see anything there that, for me, would justify spending that. Most of the features seem to be of the “yeah, okay” variety.

9

I hope not! I need that extra storage, since I have about 10,000 songs on my phone. My primary use for my phone isn’t making calls, it’s as an MP3 player.

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10

Me, too! I couldn’t get through the day without all my music. With the way our machines are tightened down at work, we can’t plug in USB keys or insert disks of any kind, and we can’t install any software to listen to the music that we can’t get to anyway. That leaves my phone.

If it doesn’t have a MicroSD slot and a removable battery, I’m not interested. That’s why I got the Note 4 from Samsung. I was looking at the OnePlus, but it just didn’t fit my needs.

11

I have about 40k songs on a portable hard drive, but 99% of the time I listen to Pandora. I haven’t bought music in years, I just rent it.

I think the last album I bought was the Gorillaz album before Plastic Beach. That or Zero 7’s from the same year. I am not equipped to buy mp3s online. Just don’t have anything set up for it.

12

I don’t buy MP3! I buy CDs and rip them to MP3. That way, in case I lose my hard drive, my backup hard drive, and my laptop, I still have my music. :wink:

Actually I buy mostly CDs because it’s really, really hard to find the stuff I listen to in MP3 format.

13

I have all these CDs that I haven’t even gotten out of the cases for years. Since I have two or three copies of all of them I just never get them out any more.

14

I know what you mean. I rip mine to MP3 then never touch them again. Getting them all ripped to MP3 in the first place took me all summer one year, but now I rip them as soon as I get them then file them.

15

Yeah, for MP3s, it’s all digital at this point, though I’ve got backups of backups just in case the inevitable happens (that was a bad year).

I ended up not going with the OnePlus. I decided to tell them why:

To OnePlus,

It’s with a heavy heart that I say to you, the hype wasn’t real enough for me. So, before I #GTFO, I’m going to leave you with one lost customer’s thoughts.

The promises made haven’t come to fruition, and the prospect for the OP2 is becoming less and less worthwhile as we drift further and further away from your launch date.

The Good:
You’ve got some impressive features, specifically: thumbprint sensor, Notification slider (kudos to whoever thought of that one), USB-C, 4GB RAM, CPU

The Bad:
Display is a bit on the cheaper end, from what I can tell. I’d check it out myself, but alas, there’s no way for me to get a hands on experience. YouTube is my best bet and that’s not really a great way to vet this out. Speakers, as mentioned on several reviews, were lackluster as was the vibration. Again, without a hands on way to test this out, I’m at a loss to decide one way or another for myself.

The Ugly:
This invite system. It was mentioned overwhelmingly that it sucked with the OPO. It was improperly done your first time around. I imagine that forgiveness was earned on it being your first time. This doesn’t seem to have changed. It still sucks. We’re now hitting October, and the majority of folks who want this phone, can’t buy it. You claim to have 5M people who reserved for an invite. I can only imagine that this statement is said tongue in cheek as you are sure to know that people have probably used every email they ever had to sign up, just to potentially increase their chances of receiving an invite sooner. This number is inflated, at best.

There are notes of overheating of your device. Hard to tell if this is just an isolated issue, or a widespread problem. You tell me.

I can’t buy this phone. Even if I wanted to. It’s not available. That’s a shame…

Good bye. Good luck. Maybe when you get your act together, I’ll check you out with the OP3?

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