Last year, the newcomers OnePlus One stormed the markets and drew attention with its high end specs and bargain price, but those who were interested in buying it couldn’t find the phone in stores, but needed to order it through the controversial invitation system. OnePlus adopted this strategy in order to keep products in stock. And it worked! After more and more people found out about this cheap flagship, the number of orders increased significantly. The fans pinned their hopes on the successor and OnePlus had to live up to their expectations, and it complied with their wishes. Of course, the OnePlus 2 wasn’t changed entirely, as you will notice that it has the same design, but on the front side a physical home button was added whose role was to hide the fingerprint scanner with which the users unlock their devices. But more about the old and new features of the OnePlus 2 you’ll find out below.

Likewise the predecessor, the OnePlus 2 will be available in two variants of internal memories. The company will firstly launch the variant with 64GB of storage and 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM on August 11, being available in the US and Europe with an invite (as usual), while the variant with 16GB of storage and 3GB of RAM will come later, perhaps in September, and it will cost $329, with $50 less than the other model.

OnePlus initiated nine pop up experience centers all over the world, and the fans who signed up for an invite will be the first ones who will get their hands on the new OnePlus 2. More invitations will be given through OnePlus’ social media channels, so you should check them from August 1.

Unfortunately, nothing convinced OnePlus to give up on the invite system, because the company doesn’t want to take risks and suffer financial losses by not selling the new product. So, the fans who want to buy the OnePlus 2 will get an invite from their friends who were lucky to purchase the phone, also through an invite. But there are also other methods which will help you fulfill your dream. If you join the OnePlus community and check the forums or the company’s social media accounts, you’ll be up-to-date with the latest contests and promotions and you’ll have high chances to get the phone without too much trouble.

OxygenOS instead of CyanogenMod

OnePlus has terminated the partnership with CyanogenMod, but will continue to receive updates for the OnePlus One model. There’s a complicated story behind this break-up, but the official version that the company wants its fans to know is totally different. So, what everybody needs to know is that OnePlus worked on its own user interface, which was called OxygenOS, and it’s based on Android 5.1. The developers added a dark mode, the users can easily switch between hardware and capacitive buttons and they can use the screen gestures to enable some actions. If they draw a “V”, they can turn on the flash light, and if they draw an “O”, the camera starts. OnePlus integrated MaxxAudio tech and with the Audio Tuner they can create custom sound profiles for music, movies or games.

Design and display

Initially, the OnePlus 2 will be shipped with the famous Sandstone Black back, but later, the phone will be released with other variants of covers which will include Kevlar, Black Apricot, Rosewood and Bamboo. However, these styles have a price, so these types of covers will cost $26.99 on OnePlus’ website.

The OnePlus 2 will feature the usual IPS LCD In-Cell display sized at 5.5inches, with Full HD resolution, and it will be encased into an aluminum-magnesium alloy frame, but which is pretty thick, because the device’s depth will gain 1mm, measuring 9.9mm. therefore, the weight of the OnePlus 2 will be increased as well, but by only 13grams, from 162grams.

Going back to the screen, you’ll be happy to know that it sits at 600nits and it’s very visible in the sun, performing with 178degrees of crystal clear viewing angles. Under the screen was placed a physical button which hides a fingerprint sensor, likewise Apple’s iPhones, Samsung’s Galaxy S6 or HTC’s One M9+, but it doesn’t support making online payments. However, the OnePlus 2 can store up to five fingerprints, and the users can lock and unlock the phone in less than half a second.

On the left side was added a an alert slider button and with it, the users can access custom notification settings, and the phone adopted the new Type-C reversible connector which was introduced on the latest MacBook.

Hardware

The OnePlus 2 received the latest and kind of criticized 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chip which houses a pair of quad core processors, because on other phones, it had some serious heating problems. But OnePlus addressed the issue and made the heating a less important problem. As we were saying in the intro, the phone is packed with LPDDR4 RAM and the flash memory is eMMC 5.0. The battery has a capacity of 3300mAh and the device has support for dual-SIM (optional).

Camera

The resolutions of both cameras remained identical, so the one on the back is 13MP and the secondary one supports 5MP. The main camera has dual-LED flash, f/2.0 aperture and the sensor is very larger than on any other 13MP smartphone, containing 1.3µm light-collecting pixels, to make the photos look clear and crisp.