OnePlus isn't just cheap. It's smart. The OnePlus 2 is a great-looking, great-feeling $329 smartphone that, just like the OnePlus One  before it, holds its own with much more expensive devices. We spent some time with one in New York and talked to founder Carl Pei about it.

First, the basics: the OnePlus 2 ($329 for 16GB, $389 for 64GB) is another 5.5-inch, flagship smartphone. It's not that big, if you're comfortable with this era of huge phones like the Moto X Style and ZTE Axon Pro. It's still noticeably bigger than a Samsung Galaxy S6, though. The phone has a comfortably rounded shape and comes with a textured, sandpapery "black sandstone" back. The front is broad, flat Gorilla Glass 3, with a combination fingerprint scanner/home button below the screen and two unlabeled touch buttons on either side of it.

On the side, there's a rare and very cool switch—a mute slider. It's textured and snappy, and locks into three positions to set Android to silent mode or to priority notifications only. That's rare on Android phones. On the bottom, there's an equally rare, reversible USB-C port.

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