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OnePlus 2 regional versions explained Aug 12, 2015

Mike , Aug 12, 2015 :

Friends,

With the OnePlus 2, we’ve taken some extra steps to ensure that our device works flawlessly in all the markets we support. A crucial component (no pun intended) is bands support. As you may be aware, LTE bands across the world differ significantly for various reasons (let’s talk about why that is some other time) and certain hardware restrictions make it so that you can only support so many bands in one device.

Thus, there is a trade-off between having all the bands and manufacturing complexity - the more bands you want to support, the more region-specific SKUs you have to create. We opted to make two different versions for two different regions - one EU/India, and one that we call North America. These are both OnePlus Global phones; they ship with Oxygen OS and the proper band support for your region. Besides those, there’s also the Chinese version that ships with Hydrogen OS and Chinese LTE support - this one is not available on oneplus.net (and is almost certainly the version you will get if you buy from anywhere else).

Here’s a breakdown of the differences (for EU/NA, bands in bold only available on that version):

Note that compatibility here refers to LTE, the fastest network currently available. The slower 2G/3G GSM frequencies (below referred to as GSM and WCDMA) are less fragmented and you should be able to get data almost worldwide with the included 2&3G bands regardless of the version. Use http://www.willmyphonework.net/ for easy reference.

EU/Asia

GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900MHz
WCDMA: Bands 1/2/5/8
FDD-LTE: Bands 1/3/5/7/8/20
TDD-LTE: Bands 38/40/41

3 and 20 are used almost all over Europe, but not at all in North America. Band 8, although available in both versions, is used in Europe and India but is seeing increasing adoption worldwide.

North America

GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900MHz
WCDMA: Bands 1/2/4/5/8
FDD-LTE: Bands 1/2/4/5/7/8/12/17

For NA, the removal of bands 3 & 20 allows us to add all the GSM bands you’ll need.

China

GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900MHz
WCDMA: 1/2/5/8
TD-SCDMA: 34/39
TDD-LTE: 38/39/40/41
FDD-LTE: 1/3/7

The Chinese version will have very limited 4G compatibility in Europe and North America. More importantly, it only has one IMEI meaning you will not have dual-SIM capability outside of China. If you like having dual SIMs, do not buy the Chinese version.

Oh, and here’s some behind-the-scenes footage - the sheet we used to determine what bands to include: