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- MaxxAudio boosts your music
- Strong gaming performance
- The speaker position isn't ideal for landscape play
Music
The OnePlus 2 has a musical party trick up its sleeve in the form of MaxxAudio enhancement, triggered whenever you start playing music via the internal speakers, wired headphones or a Bluetooth headset.
Enable MaxxAudio and your tunes are given a bit of a boost, with beefier bass the main component in play.
It provides enhancement across the board as standard, and you can jump into the graphic equalizer to fine-tune your playback further – there are a range of preset options, or if you know exactly what you want you can tinker with it freestyle.
The results are noticeable, but they're not quite as rich as the BoomSound technology found on the HTC One M9, while the down-facing speaker is no match for HTC's dual front-facing offering.
Crank the volume up too high on the OnePlus 2 and the internal speaker will start to distort your tunes –you're much better off using headphones.
You can even set sound profiles for different types of playback, with music being joined by movies and gaming, enabling you to create three different setups for the three activities.
To switch between preset profiles hit the volume rocker during playback, and you'll see a bar at the top of the screen enabling you to jump between them.
Google's Play Music app comes pre-installed on the OnePlus 2, giving you access to the search giant's own music streaming subscription service as well as a player for all your own songs stored on the handset or in the cloud.
You can always head over to Google Play and download other options, and I'm pleased to report that MaxxAudio works across most applications, including Spotify.
Gaming
With some serious power under the hood, the OnePlus 2 can handle pretty much any game you throw at it. The graphically-intensive Real Racing 3 and power-zapping Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff load quickly and run smoothly on the handset.
I found the OnePlus 2 to be a strong on-the-go gaming machine, with the large display providing a lot of real estate for onscreen controls as well as the action – although my hand tended to cover the speaker during landscape play.
The even weighting of the device makes it comfortable to hold for extended gaming sessions, although you will feel it start to heat up after particularly long periods of play; it doesn't get to excessive levels, but you'll probably want to put it down and let it cool off.
You may want to keep an eye on storage space, as games are now topping the 1GB mark, and with no expandable storage option on the OnePlus 2 you could find it filling up fast.
