OnePlus Announces OnePlus 2 'Flagship Killer' Android Phone With OxygenOS

MojoKid writes: The OnePlus 2 was officially unveiled [Monday] evening and it has been announced that the smartphone will start at an competitively low $329, unlocked and contract free. The entry level price nets you a 5.5" 1080p display, a cooler-running 1.8GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 v2.1 SoC paired with 3GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, a 13MP rear camera (with OIS, laser focusing and two-tone flash), 5MP selfie camera, and dual nano SIM slots. If you don't mind handing over an extra $60, you'll receive 4GB of RAM to back the processor and 64GB of internal storage. Besides beefing up the internal specs, OnePlus has also paid some attention to the exterior of the device, giving it a nice aluminum frame and a textured backplate. There are a number of optional materials that you can choose from including wood and Kevlar. Reader dkatana links to InformationWeek's coverage, which puts a bit more emphasis on what the phone doesn't come with: NFC. Apparently, people just don't use it as much as anticipated.

Comments

No Compromises

[BradleyUffner]

Unless you want an SD Card, NFC, Wireless charging, front speakers, OIS camera, or removable battery.

Re:No Compromises

[BradleyUffner]

Unless you want an SD Card, NFC, Wireless charging, front speakers, OIS camera, or removable battery.

Apologies, I missed that it does indeed have OIS; one of the sites I read earlier reported that it did not.

Re:No Compromises

[TWX]

I think that's part of the point, lots of people want different things in their phones, but very few manufacturers are respecting those wants.

I want storage expansion and dual-SIM. I wouldn't mind front-mounted speakers. I actually want a real, physical keyboard but I know that's simply not in the cards. I want about double the battery capacity compared to most phones, with a removable battery. I want the LTE bands for my carrier in my area to all be supported. I want a camera capable of about 5MP pictures as I have a real camera that I use when I want ultra high quality photos.

It's really the removal of the memory expansion that upsets me. They're doing it to force consumers to buy new phones in a couple of years instead of simply adding more torage capacity to their existing phones.

Re:No Compromises

[gstoddart]

I actually want a real, physical keyboard but I know that's simply not in the cards.

I figure by the time you have a fairly large touch screen an physical keyboard is just bulk ... and can probably be done with Bluetooth anyway.

I've actually found the Google keyboard which lets you type by dragging your finger over a virtual keyboard is almost as fast as a real keyboard

They're doing it to force consumers to buy new phones in a couple of years

Or they're trying to keep costs down and cover "most" of the market instead of all of it.

Re:No Compromises

[atfrase]

I am also firmly in the physical keyboard camp, and I constantly hear that argument that screens are so big now, to which I always reply: that's exactly the point. The screen is nice and big and beautiful, and I would like to use it to display *content*, not interface. When more than half the screen is wasted on drawing 26 letters and other assorted UI, then suddenly the amount of screen that can actually be used to compose your message, and display the context of that message, is tiny.

A physical slide-out keyboard allows me to use the entire screen for its actual ideal purpose: displaying things that change. A mostly static keyboard interface is a poor use of that space, and I absolutely do not mind the extra weight and bulk of the keyboard, because when composing long messages or working in a remote terminal shell it is absolutely worth it to me.

Re:No Compromises

[FictionPimp]

There are a lot of things about phones that are not deal breakers. You might want front facing speakers, but that's probably not a deal breaker. Then there are deal breaker features.

For example, I can't stand phones bigger than 5.5". So those giant nexus 6's are a deal breaker. If you don't support my carrier of choice, that's a deal breaker. If it's not stock or nearly stock android, it's a deal breaker. This phone was on my must buy list though the entire launch event, until I found out it's missing NFC support. I use NFC too much, so that's a deal breaker.

Re:No Compromises

[arth1]

I use NFC for just one thing - powering on a bluetooth speaker. (For some reason, i can't use NFC to power it off.)

There really aren't any NFC capable stores anywhere, and the only one I know of requires you to show a physical ID, which defeats the purpose, as it's less hassle using a card.
For anything else, bluetooth proximity detection works fine.. No need to use the NFC tag in my car when the phone and car pair up automatically. No need to use it for the TV, as i have to use a remote anyhow.

My wish list for mobile phones include:

Dual-radio (both GSM family and CDMA family).
2.4 and 5 GHz WiFi.
Ability to turn off high-pass and low-pass filters.
Standard USB charging.
Transparent VoIP, i.e. not have to fiddle with other apps.
A distance from mic to speaker that matches the distance between mouth and ear.
Fits in a standard shirt pocket, without tearing it or falling out.
Transparent aluminum (also known as sapphire) screen.
True IPA that is readable at all angles and doesn't show patterning at close range.
Dual storage cards; one for backup.
As many hardware buttons as practical.
An option to have NO CAMERA, so I can use it in places where cameras are not allowed.

Re:No Compromises

[AmiMoJo]

If the battery is the same as the OnePlus One it is removable, or at least not glued in. You need to pry the back cover off the phone, which isn't as easy as some but isn't difficult either. Again, not glued, just clipped. In fact they well official replacement back covers so removing it is officially supported.

The lack of NFC is disappointing. I understand having to cut stuff, but why bother with a gimmick like the fingerprint sensor at the expense of something really useful? It's a deal-breaker for me.

Lack of wireless charging is also disappointing. It's the one thing I wish my OnePlus One had, so much so that I hacked it in. With wireless charging it would be the perfect phone.

Re:Crapdroid? No thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy an Android phone? LOLOLOLOLOLOL.

What's the alternative Crapple or Blackberry?

Re:SD Card?

[bluefoxlucid]

Cost of 160GB of SD card NAND: $48

Cost of 48GB of same NAND soldered to the board: $50

They don't want you storing videos, pictures, music, and audio books on SD card; they want you to pay over 3x as much for that same SD card.

Re:SD Card?

[14erCleaner]

No floppy disk support either. Lame.

Re:Crapdroid? No thanks.

[Zalbik]

Android runs fine IFF you get a Google Nexus phone, AND don't go through Verizon or AT&T and have their malware installed.

Or if you buy any Android-compatible phone, root it and install your own OS on it. Seriously, I don't understand why anyone on Slashdot doesn't do this.

Re:SD Card?

[dj245]

Cost of 160GB of SD card NAND: $48 Cost of 48GB of same NAND soldered to the board: $50 They don't want you storing videos, pictures, music, and audio books on SD card; they want you to pay over 3x as much for that same SD card.

Compare the IOPS between an SD card and on-board NAND. Not the same thing.

Do you see a need for high IOPS for storing or viewing videos, pictures, music, or audiobooks? Because I don't. Even for loading apps that's a tough sell. I have a microSD card on a Windows 8 tablet and the only noticeable affect is that read/write speed is slower than the on-device storage. And that's because they used a cheap SD card controller- the card itself is more than capable. It isn't an issue with media consumption devices like phones and tablets.

Re:SD Card?

[amicusNYCL]

They don't want you storing videos, pictures, music, and audio books on SD card; they want you to pay over 3x as much for that same SD card.

Right, that's why they're selling an unlocked top-shelf phone for $329, because they're all about making as much profit as possible and they really want to control exactly how you use the device. That's why the OnePlus One shipped immediately also, because they had massive inventory.

Wait, sorry, that didn't happen. People needed to get invites to even purchase the OnePlus One and then wait a while for delivery because their profit margins are so thin that they cannot afford to manufacture inventory that isn't going to be sold, and then they ended up selling 10 times what they estimated and had to ramp production up mid-run.

And you think they didn't include a removable SD card because of some profit motive. I bet its the other way, I bet they're trying to keep costs down. I bet it's the same reason they didn't include NFC: because the majority of people don't use it.

Re:SD Card?

[bluefoxlucid]

So, find the parts that OnePlus put in the One and show the cost that they paid for those parts.

OnePlus One with 16GB NAND: $300

OnePlus One with 64GB NAND: $350

Run the cost of NAND chips. 64GB MLC NAND chips fluctuate at a spot price between $1.60 and $4.34. Adding 64GB of NAND to a platform costs $4.34, much less switching from an expensive 16GB NAND platform to a 64GB platform. A 32GB chip fluctuates between $1.70 and $2.93--two of those would cost $3.40 to $5.86--and the next common size down is 4GB MLC NAND. Once the manufacture process is reliable, the sheer silicon wafer size is what counts: a wafer carrying 32GB of NAND costs exactly as much as a wafer carrying 64GB NAND if exactly half of the 64GB NAND chips are non-functional due to manufacture errors and 100% of the 32GB NAND wafers are in working order.

Of course bulk agreements mean we can slim profit margins down: if I were to buy a million chips from a supplier, that supplier would make a large order from his silicon supplier, who would make a large order from his material supplier, who would make a large order from fuel and energy suppliers, and so forth. Each could negotiate a large purchase contract by which a sizable profit is made on large volume and slim margin, at each step compounding the per-unit cost savings in the final product, delivering to me at substantially below-market price.

I don't pretend to know that OnePlus paid $4 or $1.60 or so per 64GB chip; I am fully aware they likely paid substantially below-market, and that the market price I cite assumes they went fully off-the-shelf for small batches (which may have happened) and so paid more than they otherwise would have. I can't very well conjecture about how much less they might have paid than the amount I cite; I've had to run this based on the most expensive component prices available on the market.

Ask them what their profit margins are on both models, and ask them why the bigger one is $50 more.

The profit margin is demonstrably larger on the one with bigger NAND. You can ask them, but things like profit margins in specific are strategic business information: advertising that you're gouging people for additional luxury is a good way to destroy consumer faith by arrogance and entitlement, and of course lead competitors to create a strategic opportunity by advertising that they don't gouge quite so hard when add extra NAND (the opportunity is to discredit your operations and to capture your market).

Small business or not, you'd be a fool to be that transparent.

Re:/|\ Double degree economics & English. At D

[gstoddart]

No, I'm saying companies are cheap and don't tend to make a lot of variations on models because it costs them more, unless they think it's worth it.

If they figure only 5-10% of the market would buy a phone with a physical keyboard, they might not be willing to chase that because it's not worth it. And if it poses a risk to make something until they know how many would be sold, they just might not do it.

Just because you want a feature doesn't mean the company making it gives a damn. If they did, they'd probably make it.