OnePlus has launched a variety of telephones with fascinating designs and distinctive options over the past eight years. The alert slider continues to be an enormous {hardware} differentiator for the corporate, and a few of my favourite designs have been OnePlus telephones: the OnePlus 6T in Thunder Purple, the OnePlus 5T Star Wars Version, and the OnePlus 7 Professional.
OnePlus’ give attention to design aesthetics comes from the very prime. Co-founder and CEO Pete Lau typically talks about how design is a key space of focus for OnePlus, and I bear in mind one dialog forward of the OnePlus 6 launch distinctly.
On the time, OnePlus was launching its first cellphone in a purple coloration, and Lau mentioned that he and the design staff deliberated over the alternatives for a number of weeks to get the proper hue for the system.
In the end, OnePlus went with a purple hue that was $4 costlier than different alternate options (no small change once you’re engaged on razor-thin margins), however the consequence was that the Crimson OnePlus 6 regarded completely beautiful. It is this consideration to element over each aspect of the system that endeared energy customers to the corporate. However sadly, OnePlus is not doing that any longer.
In 2022, you possibly can sum up OnePlus’s cellphone portfolio in a single phrase: spinoff. As a substitute of launching authentic designs that stand out from the pack, OnePlus is actually rebranding present OPPO and Realme units.
This is not the primary time OnePlus has gone to OPPO for design inspiration. The 2017 OnePlus 5 was practically similar to the OPPO R11, and OnePlus has all the time relied on OPPO to fabricate and distribute its telephones.
However on the time, the {hardware} similarities did not matter as a lot as a result of OPPO did not have a major world presence outdoors a number of Asian markets. Moreover, OnePlus’s efforts with OxygenOS meant that the software program on each telephones was very totally different.
This is not the case in 2022. OnePlus telephones have the identical software program as their OPPO siblings, they usually now share the identical designs with none significant tweaks. That is notably true for the Nord N sequence — the Nord N20 5G that launched a number of weeks in the past is nothing however a rebadged OPPO Reno 8 Lite.
Equally, the Nord CE 2 Lite is a Realme 9 Professional knockoff with a wide-angle lens that is not nearly as good, and the Nord CE 2 is a Reno 7 spinoff.
The worst offender is the OnePlus 10R; this system is a poor imitation of the Realme GT Neo 3, and it has the ugliest design of any cellphone I’ve used this 12 months. I can not consider that the identical firm that gave us the OnePlus 7T simply three years in the past got here out with this monstrosity.
{Hardware} is only one a part of the story right here; OnePlus bumped into vital points integrating ColorOS with OxygenOS, and these are clearly evident on the 10R. The system is liable to lag and buggy in a means that the Realme GT Neo 3 simply is not — although they’re each basically the identical cellphone.
What’s clear is that OnePlus would not have anyplace near the identical stage of management over its portfolio beneath OPPO’s tutelage. The way in which I see it, OnePlus now exists as a means for BBK to promote telephones in North America.
OPPO and Realme do not promote units within the area, so it stands to cause that BBK is rebranding present units from these two entities and releasing them beneath the OnePlus label.
OnePlus now exists as a means for BBK to promote telephones in North America.
As to why that is the case now and never three years in the past, it has to do with numbers. Realme simply turned 4 this week, and the model already has over 100 million gross sales to its title. OnePlus, in the meantime, is twice as previous and hasn’t offered even half as many items. To be truthful, a lot of the units that Realme offered have been within the price range class whereas OnePlus targeted its consideration on high-end telephones, and that is an enormous contributor as to why the producer hasn’t posted sturdy gross sales figures in its eight-year historical past.
That is additionally why we’re seeing a variety of impetus across the price range and mid-tier Nord sequence and never as a lot give attention to the flagship OnePlus 10 sequence this 12 months. OnePlus revealed for the primary time final 12 months that it offered 10 million telephones, and a majority of these gross sales have been within the Nord and Nord N sequence.
So in case you’re in North America and want a price range cellphone, OnePlus remains to be possibility as a result of there is not any OPPO, Realme, or Xiaomi within the area. However in case you’re in a market the place OPPO and Realme promote telephones formally, you are higher off shopping for from them immediately.
OnePlus’s derivatives price rather less than their BBK siblings, however that is not well worth the problem of coping with buggy software program and lackluster designs. OnePlus used to make among the finest Android telephones, however that is not the case in 2022.
