It seems OnePlus couldn't stick to its promise of no more information till it launches the OnePlus 2. Last night, OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei was online for an Ask-Me-Almost-Anything (AMAA) session on Reddit. After about an hour and a half of answering question, we now know the following eight things about the upcoming OnePlus 2.
Three versions for three zones
The OnePlus 2 will have three 'versions', not variants — China, North America and Europe/Asia. The US and European versions of the phone will have the following connectivity bands:
US GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900MHz WCDMA: Bands: 1/2/4/5/8 FDD-LTE: Bands: 1/2/4/5/7/8/12/17
Europe GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900MHz WCDMA: Bands: 1/2/5/8 FDD-LTE: Bands: 1/3/5/7/8/20
Smaller dimensions
OnePlus 2 will have a smaller footprint than the current OnePlus One. We wait to see if the phone will have a smaller display (5-inch or 5.3-inch), or a 5.5-inch (or bigger) display with thinner bezels.
Larger battery
Pei also revealed that they have increased the battery capacity on the OnePlus 2 by 10 percent from OnePlus One. The phone will have a larger battery capacity of 3300mAh. It was also revealed that the phone won’t have wireless charging as it is “not very efficient”.
Physical fingerprint sensor
Answering about using Qualcomm’s Sensor ID technology, Pei said that the phone will have a physical sensor instead. He also added that the physical keys will be different this time as well.
The OnePlus 2 camera
On the AMAA, Pei said that the design and build of the OnePlus 2 is a "big step up", and the camera has a very high priority on their list. He stated that while the hardware is pretty much finalized, they are still tinkering with the design. While no details about the camera were revealed, Pei did mention that the camera software is handled by their Taipei engineering team which has a lot of ex-HTC camera people. We hope they don’t repeat what they did at HTC.
Newer back covers
This time, the phone will have ‘Styleswap’ back covers, something Motorola has been doing with its Moto G and X.
Sales model
Talking more about the sale model, the company said that they have will have a better invite system in place. However, we are not sure if the invite system would be applied in the Indian market as well. There is also news for early buyers – the company will possibly give priority passes to them for the OnePlus 2. However, the company denied any possibility of an exchange scheme taking place.
Tuning into the launch event
Pei said that they will be releasing a dedicated app for the launch, and users with the VR headset will be able to watch it live. As for the rest, they will be able to watch it next day on youtube.
OnePlus will be launching the OnePlus 2 on 27th July, and by now, has been widely spoken about. The company has already confirmed that the OnePlus 2 will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 v2.1 SoC. It also claims that the overheating issue of Snapdragon 810 has been taken care of. It will have 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM, a faster fingerprint sensor than Apple's Touch ID, USB Type-C port, and will be running on the latest Oxygen OS build. It will be priced under $450.