OnePlus 2 teardown: more repairable than OnePlus 1, battery can be removed fairly easily
OnePlus 2 Teardown — Teardown — Teardowns provide a look inside a device and should not be used as disassembly instructions. — Featured Guide — This guide has been found to be exceptionally cool by the iFixit staff.
Context & Ripple Effects
iFixit spent 2015 systematically cracking open each new Android flagship, and the results split cleanly: the HTC One M9 teardown found its streamlined design buried the battery behind hard-to-reach internals, while the later Nexus 5X teardown showed components that could be swapped independently. The OnePlus 2 now lands on the friendlier side of that divide.
The finding matters because OnePlus is a young brand building its reputation against incumbents, and its second phone improving on the OnePlus 1 gives early adopters a concrete reason to trust the hardware beyond spec sheets.
First-order effects
- OnePlus 2 owners and independent repair shops can replace the battery fairly easily, unlike M9 owners facing a buried cell.
- The OnePlus 2 enters iFixit's teardown record as more repairable than its predecessor, a direct reputational upgrade over the OnePlus 1.
Second-order effects
- Repairability becomes comparable marketing ammunition among 2015 flagships: OnePlus can point to an accessible battery while HTC's buried-cell design reads as a liability in the same published teardown series.
- Rivals designing their next flagships face pressure from these public scores, since iFixit's writeups are turning internal assembly choices into consumer-visible comparisons.
Third-order effects
- If every flagship gets torn down and scored, assembly-for-repairability shifts from an afterthought to a design constraint — a trajectory the modular Fairphone 2 pushes further by earning a rare perfect repairability score the same year.
- Published teardowns are quietly building the evidence base that later fuels repairability expectations as a standard purchase criterion rather than a niche concern.
The trend: Flagship smartphones in this era are increasingly judged by published repairability teardowns, making serviceability a visible competitive dimension alongside specs and price.