As i was dissapointed by the high prices of Google’s Nexus 5X and 6P i got myself a OnePlus 2 64GB. The device arrived within 8 days from China and i have completely switched over from my old Nexus 5 to the OnePlus 2 running Exodus Android. Replacing the stock OS was easy and straight forward so thought i could share some quick instructions.

Unlocking the bootloader

I assume that you already got the Android platform tools installed - you need fastboot and adb. Command line examples are for Linux. If these tools mean nothing to you, then these instructions are probably not for you.

The OnePlus 2 is similar to the Nexus devices and supports fastboot. Unlocking the bootloader will wipe the device - so only do this if you have a backup! To put the OnePlus 2 into fastboot mode, shut it down and then press and hold volume up and power button until the logo appears. Check with sudo fastboot devices - the device needs to appear there.

Unlock the device with fastboot.

$ sudo fastboot oem unlock

This will show some chinese on the phone - this is the confirmation dialog where the first option means yes. Confirm with the power button. The device will wipe itself and reboot when complete.

Flash custom recovery

After the device is unlocked a custom recovery needs to be installed. Get the image from https://dl.twrp.me/oneplus2. To flash the recovery your phone has to be in fastboot mode again.

$ sudo fastboot flash recovery twrp-2.8.7.0-oneplus2.img

After this, boot directly into TWRP by running sudo fastboot boot twrp-2.8.7.0-oneplus2.img. Do not boot OxygenOS as this will overwrite TWRP with the default recovery again. Follow the instructions of TWRP to prevent this.

Replace OxygenOS

Exodos Android seems to be the only custom Android distribution which already does provide official nighly images for the OnePlus 2. Download the image from http://www.exodus-developers.net/exodus-5.1/oneplus2/.

If you want Google surveillance, now is the time to get the Google Apps package. The OnePlus 2 is 64bit (ARM64) - make sure to get the correct download. I recommend to get the mini package from the Open Gapps project at http://opengapps.org/?api=5.1&variant=mini&arch=arm64.

Full wipe

To install a custom Android a full wipe is required. So go to Advanced Wipe and select System, Data, Cache and Dalvik Cache.

Install ZIPs

Put the downloaded ZIP files on the phone with adb. If your adb does not detect the OnePlus 2, then add the OnePlus USB vendor ID to ~/.android/adb_usb.ini with echo 0x2a70 >> ~/.android/adb_usb.ini and try adb devices again.

$ adb push exodus-5.1-20151003-NIGHTLY-oneplus2.zip /sdcard
$ adb push open_gapps-arm64-5.1-mini-20151008.zip /sdcard

Now select the Exodos ZIP file and apply it. After that has completed, the new system is basically ready. Now also select and apply the Google Apps ZIP file if you want Play Store and Google integration.

Reboot

Reboot, after the ZIPs have installed successfully. The first boot will take a couple of minutes.

Summary

The OnePlus 2 works surprisingly well for me and i complely migrated to it after two days testing. I have encountered some minor software issues related to the early state of the OnePlus 2 custom Android. Only real issue is that the beast is really large and it does take a while to charge.

Issues and problems

• Barcode / QR code scanners crash Android.
• Sometimes the hardware buttons stop working - workaround is to toggle the control style setting in General button options.
• The screen protector (applied by default) leaves smudges easily.
• New cables required (Type C).
• Device gets really hot when running CPU intensive stuff like enabling disk encryption.

So i am going to keep the OnePlus 2 and can recommend it to others if you can bare the size of the phone. It depends on your Internet connection download speed if you get this done in 20 minutes or less :)