OnePlus has launched lots of telephones with attention-grabbing designs and distinctive options over the past eight years. The alert slider continues to be a giant {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 Edition, and the OnePlus 7 Pro.
OnePlus’ deal with design aesthetics comes from the very high. Co-founder and CEO Pete Lau usually 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 crimson shade, and Lau stated that he and the design staff deliberated over the alternatives for a number of weeks to get the proper hue for the system.
Finally, OnePlus went with a crimson hue that was $4 costlier than different options (no small change whenever you’re engaged on razor-thin margins), however the outcome was that the Pink OnePlus 6 appeared completely gorgeous. It is this consideration to element over each side of the system that endeared energy customers to the corporate. However sadly, OnePlus is not doing that any longer.
In 2022, you may sum up OnePlus’s cellphone portfolio in a single phrase: spinoff. As an alternative of launching authentic designs that stand out from the pack, OnePlus is actually rebranding current OPPO and Realme units.
This is not the primary time OnePlus has gone to OPPO for design inspiration. The 2017 OnePlus 5 was nearly identical 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 just a few Asian markets. Moreover, OnePlus’s efforts with OxygenOS meant that the software program on each telephones was very completely different.
This is not the case in 2022. OnePlus telephones have the identical software program as their OPPO siblings, and so they now share the identical designs with none significant tweaks. That is significantly true for the Nord N sequence — the Nord N20 5G that launched just a few 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 pretty much 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 imagine 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 important points integrating ColorOS with OxygenOS, and these are clearly evident on the 10R. The system is liable to lag and buggy in a method that the Realme GT Neo 3 simply is not — despite the fact that they’re each primarily the identical cellphone.
What’s clear is that OnePlus would not have anyplace near the identical stage of management over its portfolio below OPPO’s tutelage. The best way I see it, OnePlus now exists as a method 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 current units from these two entities and releasing them below the OnePlus label.
OnePlus now exists as a method 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 models.
That is why we’re seeing lots of impetus across the price range and mid-tier Nord sequence and never as a lot deal with the flagship OnePlus 10 sequence this 12 months.
So for those who’re in North America and wish a price range cellphone, OnePlus continues to be an excellent possibility as a result of there isn’t any OPPO, Realme, or Xiaomi within the area. However for those who’re in a market the place OPPO and Realme promote telephones formally, you are higher off shopping for from them straight.
OnePlus’s derivatives price rather less than their BBK siblings, however that is not definitely worth the trouble of coping with buggy software program and lackluster designs. OnePlus used to make a number of the best Android phones, however that is not the case in 2022.
