Can the flagship killer kill the world's biggest flagship?
The OnePlus 2 has been heavily billed as a 'flagship killer' and there's no bigger flagship than the iPhone 6S. Apple's latest superphone is set to take the world by storm and with a stylish metal build, smooth performance, a promising camera and impressive features, such as 3D Touch and Touch ID, it's no wonder.
The OnePlus 2 is no slouch either though, with powerful innards, a big screen, a fingerprint scanner and a comparatively low price. But is it really good enough to 'kill' the iPhone 6S?
Design
The OnePlus 2 has a better design than the OnePlus One, but there's still room for improvement. Its metal frame gives it a premium edge, but it's not quite the slimmest phone around at 9.9mm thick, while its back cover is a rough plastic affair.
It's certainly easy to grip, but it doesn't look or feel particularly great. Fortunately if you stump up a little extra cash there are some more exotic and interesting options you can swap it for, such as bamboo or Kevlar.
Apple almost never disappoints with its designs and while the iPhone 6S is rather similar to the iPhone 6 it still looks great. A slim 7.1mm metal unibody with curved edges ensures it looks and feels like a sleek flagship and it's clearly a better looking phone than the standard metal and plastic version of the OnePlus 2.
Display
The iPhone 6S has a 4.7-inch screen, which makes it fairly compact by flagship standards. That may appeal though and if you want something larger there's always the iPhone 6S Plus.
It's a 1334 x 750 screen, so it's fairly sharp and as usual from Apple you can expect good contrast and great colour reproduction.
The OnePlus 2 has a 1080p display, but it's a far larger 5.5-inch one, with a pixel density of 401 pixels per inch. It's a little sharper then but it's not the best screen we've ever come across. However it has good viewing angles and can be pumped up to a high brightness for improved outdoor viewing.
Power and performance
With a (likely dual-core) Apple A9 processor the iPhone 6S might not sound like a super powerful handset, but that's actually a significant upgrade over the iPhone 6 and that older phone has no problem running most apps and games.
The OnePlus 2 has a 1.8GHz octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor with either 3GB or 4GB of RAM, all of which leads to moderately impressive performance, though it can get a bit toasty during extended gaming sessions and the home button sometimes takes a moment to respond.
Camera
Apple almost always delivers an impressive camera and it certainly looks like it has with the iPhone 6S. The handset has a 12MP sensor on the back and a 5MP one on the front, which are big megapixel boosts over the great iPhone 6 camera.
We'll let you know in our review whether more megapixels have translated into better pictures, but we're hopeful that this will be a class leading camera.
The OnePlus 2's snapper is good but certainly not flagship killing. It has a 13MP sensor on the back and a 5MP one on the front, so similar to the iPhone 6S. Plus it benefits from optical image stabilisation and a laser autofocus to help you snap photos fast and reduce camera shake.
So far so good and in practice it can take decent pictures, especially impressing in low light conditions, but the results are generally good rather than great.
OS
The iPhone 6S ships with iOS 9, which takes everything good about iOS 8 and builds on it, including adding new features to Siri and Apple Maps. It's not a complete overhaul but it smooths off some of the few remaining rough edges in the OS.
The iPhone 6S also has 3D Touch, which adds a new way to interact with the phone, allowing it to respond differently to light and hard presses. It's a bit like the way you can get different options by tapping or long pressing an icon on many handsets, but with it records pressure instead.
The OnePlus 2 doesn't have any fancy pressure sensitive tech, but it does have a pretty great interface. It runs Android 5.1 skinned with Oxygen OS, which keeps the Android look and layout but adds a bunch of extra options, such as being able to launch the torch or camera by drawing a shape on the screen.
Battery
At 3,300mAh the OnePlus 2 has a larger battery than most 2015 flagships and it lasts a little longer than many too, comfortably seeing you through a day even if you push it a bit, but it won't likely last through a second day or even a second morning.
The iPhone 6S probably won't have quite as good battery life, as we're expecting similar performance to the just-about-a-day life iPhone 6, but we'll let you know when we've properly put it to the test.
Price and availability
Price is one thing the OnePlus 2 really has going in its favour, as you can pick it up from £239 ($329, around AU$517). That's ludicrously cheap for a flagship phone, but sadly actually buying it is a little trickier, as it's invite only.
The iPhone 6S has the sort of price you'd expect from a flagship, starting at £539 ($649, AU$1,079). In other words it's almost double what the OnePlus 2 costs, but it is arguably a slightly more premium phone.
You won't need an invite to buy the iPhone 6S, but stock may initially be limited given the huge demand for it.
Verdict
The biggest thing the OnePlus 2 has going for it is its price tag, as it's hard to justify paying almost double for the iPhone 6S. Price aside the OnePlus 2 is pretty great too, thanks to flagship specs, a good camera and an improved design.
That said if money is no object the iPhone 6S looks like it could well be the better handset, with a more premium build, a likely better camera and innovative features such as 3D Touch.
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