OnePlus 2 review: Bounty Hunter

Performance

OnePlus 2 runs on the latest available Snapdragon 810 chip, which might be among the most powerful beasts on the market, but still resounds rather negative thoughts due to the numerous overheating reports.

Unlike other Snapdragon 810-powered devices though, the OnePlus 2 comes with a down-clocked processor, which should help it achieve a lower thermal signature where throttling happens more rarely.

So, the OnePlus 2 has an octa-core processor with four Cortex-A57 cores at 1.8 GHz and four Cortex-A53 running at 1.56 GHz. There is 3GB RAM for the 16GB model and 4GB RAM on the 64GB flavor (as is ours). The GPU, which handles the graphics department is the powerful Adreno 430.

GeekBench 3 gauges the multi-core processor performance and the OnePlus 2 does excellent. While its CPU clock is lower than the rest of the Snapdragon 810 gang - it performs better and is outrun only by Samsung's latest Exynos 7420.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  5215
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
  5095
• ZTE Axon Pro
  4574
• OnePlus 2
  4429
• HTC One M9
  3761
• LG G Flex2
  3604
• LG G4
  3509
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  3402
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  3120
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  3094
• OnePlus One
  2663

The compound AnTuTu 5 places the OnePlus 2 between the Snapdragon 801-powered Galaxy S5 and the Snapdragon 810-featuring G Flex2 and Xperia Z3+. The Galaxy S6 duo has a faster CPU, GPU and memory are thus are way ahead of the rest of the smartphones in this test.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
  70053
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  69396
• ZTE Axon Pro
  55956
• HTC One M9
  51427
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  49441
• LG G4
  49295
• LG G Flex2
  47680
• OnePlus 2
  47207
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  45632
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  45348

The BaseMark OS II 2.0 is a more comprehensive test, which measures both the synthetic and real-life performance. It takes in consideration raw CPU and GPU power, memory, overall system performance, and web scores, among others. Here the OnePlus 2 does as good as Galaxy S6 and is a hair below the top of the chart.

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
  1750
• LG G Flex2
  1726
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  1674
• OnePlus 2
  1622
• LG G4
  1584
• HTC One M9
  1365
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  1353
• OnePlus One
  1230
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  1226
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  1160

The down-clocked processor takes its toll on the CPU breakdowns though and while the single-core performance is on par for the class, the multi-core benchmark hits the bottom.

Basemark OS 2.0 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  6306
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
  6173
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  6068
• LG G4
  5871
• LG G Flex2
  5597
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  5557
• OnePlus 2
  5301
• OnePlus One
  5108
• HTC One M9
  4688
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  2764

Basemark OS 2.0 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
  27703
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  26799
• OnePlus One
  19625
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  19237
• LG G Flex2
  18856
• HTC One M9
  18047
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  17882
• LG G4
  17739
• OnePlus 2
  16798
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  11899

Adreno 430 is among the best GPUs on the market and it performs splendidly on the OnePlus 2's 1080p display. When it comes to raw GPU performance in the offscreen tests, the Mali-T760MP8 does slightly better.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  59
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
  59
• ZTE Axon Pro
  55
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  50
• LG G Flex2
  49
• HTC One M9
  49
• OnePlus 2
  48
• LG G4
  34.5
• OnePlus One
  28.3
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  28
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  27

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
  26
• ZTE Axon Pro
  25
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  24
• HTC One M9
  23
• LG G Flex2
  22
• OnePlus 2
  22
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  21
• LG G4
  14.9
• OnePlus One
  12.1
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  12
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  11

The real-life onscreen performance is what really matters and the OnePlus 2 offers blazing-fast and future-proof GPU capabilities. It has managed to climb up at nearly the top of our onscreen charts.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)

Higher is better

• HTC One M9
  50
• LG G Flex2
  48
• OnePlus 2
  46.7
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  46
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
  39
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  38
• ZTE Axon Pro
  35
• OnePlus One
  30
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  28
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  28
• LG G4
  24.7

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• HTC One M9
  24
• LG G Flex2
  22
• OnePlus 2
  22
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  21
• ZTE Axon Pro
  15
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
  15
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  14
• OnePlus One
  12.9
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  12
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  11
• LG G4
  9.4

The BaseMark X GPU test gives the OnePlus 2 a very good mark putting it ahead of the other S810 devices, but behind the latest flagship Samsung Galaxy phones.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  27169
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
  27046
• ZTE Axon Pro
  22928
• OnePlus 2
  21937
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  20767
• HTC One M9
  19848
• LG G Flex2
  19360
• LG G4
  15090
• OnePlus One
  13129
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  13075
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  11798

OnePlus 2's default browser is Chrome and we tested how it does on the Two's hardware. The JavaScript performance is OK, but slightly behind the competition.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
  3989
• LG G4
  4085
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  4154
• LG G Flex2
  4621
• ZTE Axon Pro
  5374
• HTC One M9
  5500
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  5968
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  6382
• OnePlus 2
  6808
• OnePlus One
  7008
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  9204

The compound BrowserMark 2.1 test puts the OnePlus 2 at the second-best spot, outdone only by the latest flagship Galaxies.

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  2718
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
  2702
• LG G Flex2
  2086
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  2066
• OnePlus 2
  2055
• LG G4
  1990
• ZTE Axon Pro
  1957
• HTC One M9
  1681
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  1436
• OnePlus One
  1339
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  748

Summing it all up, it's obvious that the OnePlus 2 isn't going to kill any 2015 flagships, let alone any of the flagships to come out in 2016. Sure, performance-wise, it's on par with most of the available top-tier devices and even has an edge due to its lower resolution screen and powerful graphics. But is it fast enough?

Yes. The OnePlus 2 packs enough power to handle everything hassle-free for quite a long time. Its processor is fast and 64-bit, the GPU is from the current generation and supports Open GL ES 1.x, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, TS & GS; Open CL 1.2 and Direct X 11.2.

Long story short, the OnePlus 2 is fast and future proof. But does it overheat?

No, OnePlus 2 does not suffer from overheating issues and performance stuttering. It heats up quite a lot around its top, but apparently down-clocking the CPU did the trick and you don't have to worry it will overheat and throttle down the performance. It still becomes hot in everyday use, even with mundane tasks such as updating Play Store apps, so have that in mind if you are bothered by such things. Still, unless you're holding the phone in landscape you usually don't notice it even if that happens.