OnePlus has launched plenty of telephones with attention-grabbing 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 usually talks about how design is a key space of focus for OnePlus, and I keep in mind one dialog forward of the OnePlus 6 launch distinctly.
On the time, OnePlus was launching its first cellphone in a pink colour, and Lau mentioned that he and the design crew deliberated over the alternatives for a number of weeks to get the appropriate hue for the system.
In the end, OnePlus went with a pink hue that was $4 costlier than different options (no small change once you’re engaged on razor-thin margins), however the consequence was that the Purple OnePlus 6 seemed completely beautiful. 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 possibly can sum up OnePlus’s cellphone portfolio in a single phrase: spinoff. As a substitute of launching unique designs that stand out from the pack, OnePlus is basically rebranding current OPPO and Realme gadgets.
This is not the primary time OnePlus has gone to OPPO for design inspiration. The 2017 OnePlus 5 was almost equivalent to the OPPO R11, and OnePlus has at all times 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 international 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, 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 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’t 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 important points integrating ColorOS with OxygenOS, and these are clearly evident on the 10R. The system is vulnerable to lag and buggy in a manner that the Realme GT Neo 3 simply is not — regardless that they’re each primarily the identical cellphone.
What’s clear is that OnePlus does not have wherever near the identical degree of management over its portfolio beneath OPPO’s tutelage. The way in which I see it, OnePlus now exists as a manner for BBK to promote telephones in North America.
OPPO and Realme do not promote gadgets within the area, so it stands to purpose that BBK is rebranding current gadgets from these two entities and releasing them beneath the OnePlus label.
OnePlus now exists as a manner 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 bought even half as many models. To be truthful, a lot of the gadgets that Realme bought have been within the funds class whereas OnePlus centered 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 plenty of impetus across the funds 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 bought 10 million telephones, and a majority of these gross sales have been within the Nord and Nord N sequence.
So for those who’re in North America and wish a funds cellphone, OnePlus continues to be choice 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 immediately.
OnePlus’s derivatives value 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 few of the finest Android telephones, however that is not the case in 2022.
