Let’s talk about the OnePlus 2’s missing features

It would be easy to write this and beat OnePlus with its #NeverSettle hashtag, perhaps throwing in ‘And isn’t it ironic…Don’t you think?’ while I’m at it. But I won’t. Instead, let me say, that the OnePlus 2 boasts some high-end components, from the Snapdragon 810 processor, the  3GB/4GB of RAM, the super-quick camera to the 3,300mAh battery. That’s notwithstanding the amazing price of $329 for the 16GB and $389 for the 64GB variants. Fantastic prices, really. But, in reaching those price-points, what features did OnePlus leave out?

• Wireless Charging
• MicroSD Card (Although the OnePlus One didn’t have a MicroSD card slot)
• Quick Charge ( Any sort of quick charging technology)
• NFC

Each feature, taken on its own merit, has the ability to polarize opinion. For example, I don’t use wireless charging so it doesn’t matter to me that it isn’t present, but I have a friend that uses it every day, and considers it a must have feature.

You might say that the absence of any sort of Quick Charge technology doesn’t affect you in the slightest but are you ready to go back to needing 3 hours and twenty minutes to fully recharge the OnePlus 2? I get it that on the normal day, you will charge your phone while you are sleeping and wake up to a fully charged handset. But it’s on the abnormal days that we often make use of our smartphone’s ability to charge quickly, the days where we simply forgot to plug our phones into the charger, or if you live in South Africa, where the power grid often cuts out thanks to load shedding, you try to charge your phone when you can.

One of the possible reasons for the lack of a quick charge function could be the inclusion of the USB Type C socket, which is not to be confused with USB 3.1. The Type C socket that the OnePlus 2 has is basically a re-working of the USB 2.0 socket enabling it to accept a cable any which way. But because it’s a Type C socket, it might not be compatible with Qualcomm’s Quick Charge technology that requires a physical, compatible power controller. I’m sure we will hear more about this in the coming days. On the plus side, there is a 3,300mAh battery that should get most users through the day.

As for not having a MicroSD card slot, well, the OnePlus One didn’t have one either so it can’t really be classed as a missing feature. Is it something that some of us want? Yes, but on the flip-side, it’s also a feature that some don’t. If you previously bought the OnePlus One and found it lacked storage, then you should probably think of going for the 64GB variant of the OnePlus 2 instead if you are planning on changing up.

The lack of NFC is a tough one to call. OnePlus say that they dropped NFC from the phone because “We heard from a lot of users of the One and saw most of our users weren’t using NFC.” Granted, it isn’t a feature that many of us use, but it is something that some of us might hope to use with when Google finally rolls out Android Pay in the next couple of months. Other uses include using it for NFC tags, connecting to cameras to retrieve photos or connecting to speakers.

It isn’t quite as clear-cut as OnePlus make out. The omission of these features points to OnePlus stripping out unnecessary components to meet the desired price point. Which means compromising or settling for a phone that is good enough, rather than the 2016 flagship killer that it so desperately wants its followers to believe.

That all sounds very negative, I know, but I am finishing on a positive, I promise. While some of us will moan about the OnePlus 2 lacking a MicroSD card slot, wireless charging, NFC and any form of quick charge technology, there is a market for a high-performance smartphone with mostly high-end components at a reasonable price. What it boils down to really, is accepting the OnePlus 2 for what it offers for $329/$389 instead of what rejecting it for what it lacks.

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