Oneplus, the most admired smartphone brand after Samsung and Apple iphones. For it’s beautiful design, high  quality performance and reasonable pricing.



I have seen my friends admiring the brand like they want badly want to buy one.

In this blog let’s trace out the journey of Oneplus from starting to until Oneplus 9 (2021).

Oneplus was started by the former Oppo employees Pete Lau and Carl-Pei.

Pete-Lau was a man of detail when he was working in Oppo he smashed a blu-ray player circuit board to express the disappointment that he didn’t like the design which caught attention in tech-circle. Carl-pei was the former marketing head of oppo and worked directly under him .

Oneplus One (2014): The birth of the brand and the first dream-phone for Pete Lau 

Key Specs:
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chipset
  • Android 4.4.2 KitKat based on Cyanogen Mod
  • Ram variant was 3gb,Camera was 13mp (rear).
The brand slogan was “Never Settle” .The product launched with “Smash the past *” , ” Ladies First * ” competition to win the oneplus for $1. Invite system was planned because to preplan the production capacity of the device.

 Oneplus one had troubles when launching in India because of the Cyanogen os .

 “YU Televentures” subsidiary of Micromax  did not permit them selling the phones in India because of unlicensed CyanogenOS. While Yu had the full copyright of the OS and had signed the deal with Cyanogen Inc  making it the only OEM with CyanogenOS to be sold in India .

Oneplus designed Oxygen Os in its response  for Cyanogen and promised to be a closer to stock android ,less bloatware and a very smooth user experience.

OnePlus Two (2015) : The device which didn't sell well in India.


 Key Specs:
  • Snapdragon 810 chipset  
  • Oxygen OS based on Android 5.1.1 out of the box.
  • Ram variants were available in 3/4 gb ,Camera was 13mp

It was the first device from one plus which adopted USB-C as a charging standard.Also the first in smartphone industry.

It lacked NFC, wireless charging .

Oneplus Two wasn’t quite popular in India.

Issues: Oneplus promised nougat update to this phone but never did it  .Thus ending product life-cycle.

 Oneplus 3 and 3T (2016) : Dash-charge comes into play


 Key Specs:
  • Snapdragon 820 chipset.
  • Android 6.0.1 out of the box.
  • Ram variant was mainly 6gb ,Camera was 16mp

  Dash charge was implemented on this device which is based on Oppo SuperVooc technology (Parent brand).

  The device promised 30-50% charging in a less time of 15 or 20 mins
  Oneplus 3T was accompanied by Snapdragon 821 chipset .

I’m not gonna discuss T models from here on because they are all same chipsets but with extra cameras and   improved fast charging that’s all .

Issues:- Benchmark score cheating found on oneplus 3T hardwae

 Oneplus 5 (2017): We skipped the 4 because it’s a sign of bad luck in China


Key Specs:
  • Snapdragon 835  
  • Android 7.1.1 (Nougat) OS out of the box.
  • Ram variants were 6/8 gb .
  • Dual camera 20mp (standard )+ 16mp(wide) first on a oneplus phone

It’s slogan was Dual Camera. Clearer Photos.

Issues :- Some phones were known to reboot when dialing 911, preventing users from calling emergency services and 5T was found to be be on benchmark cheating.

 OnePlus 6(2018) : The speed you need

   

Key Specs:
  • Snapdragon 845 chipset.
  • Android 8.1 out of the box.  
  • Ram variants were same as Oneplus 5 and same goes for the camera setup as well.

Many people ended up buying Poco F1 which was direct competitor .Since it had the same chipset and a lot cheaper in the category of price : performance ratio. 

Oneplus 6T did not contain an headphone jack .

OnePlus 7 (2019) : The best ever oneplus rated among the reviewers and consumers


Key specs:-
  • Snapdragon 855 chipset
  • Android 9 out of the box
  • Was available in 6/8/12 gb ram variants
  • Camera were based on 48mp(main) and 5 mp (depth) rear side 

 Oneplus had four variants which was the highest 7/7 Pro and 7T/7T Pro

 This phone hyped up the market for having the higher ram 12gb seriously!

 However it had praises from the consumers and tech reviews for the smooth performance it had

Issues: The android 11 roll out on this device caused a very bad experience got criticized by customers.Some users started rolling back to android 10 

Oneplus 8(2020): The Oppoification starts


 Key specs:-
  • Snapdragon 865 chipset .
  • Android 10 out of the box .
  • Camera setup was 48(main)+13(ultrawide) + 5mp(depth) rear side

It was discovered that the 8 Pro's Color Filter camera can see through certain plastics, including clothing, producing an X-ray like effect.However it was disabled through software updates.

It’s Oled screen started to have tint issues. The front part screen of OnePlus 8 resembles the Oppo Find X2’s screen.

The User Interface was changing from stock android to the likes of One UI resemblance  .

Before the launch of oneplus 8t .Carl pei left the company to start out a new venture called "Nothing".The reason for leaving oneplus is still unknown to many.

Oneplus Nord(2020): A bid to take in the mid-range market with oxygen os experience.


 

 Key specs:

  • Snapdragon 765g chipset with 5g support
  • Android 10 out of the box .
  • Quad camera setup  48mp(main with ois)+8(ultra-wide)+5(depth)+2(macro) rear

 It aimed to provide the experience of Oneplus in mid range category.
 Oneplus claimed that 48mp camera was the same of 8T .But it was not so good.

 Issues:- Automatic factory reset when kept in a pocket

 Later Oneplus Nord N10 5G and Oneplus Nord N100 came to the market but they were rather disappointing   not to get the OS updates for 2 years only 1 year software support and didn’t launch in India.

Oneplus 9 (2021) :We have signed an Hassleblad contact for $150 million and overhyping cameras.

Key Specs:
  •  Snapdragon 888 chipset
  • Android 11 out of the box.
  • Camera setup was 48 mp(No ois )+ 50mp(ultra-wide)+2mp(monochrome).


Started hyping cameras “Hassleblad colour science” but it did not live up to it’s expectations in the hands of tech reviewers.

Issues : Overheating warning when capturing high-resolution photos and treating Indian users with less 5g bands.

Oneplus 9 had no OIS^ while the 9R had it without hassleblad branding pretty irony.

The Vivo iqoo 7 which is it’s sister company ended up beating it in camera department.

My Opinion about the brand in India:

  • Oneplus Isn’t the same now it has turned to be a flagship.
  • From consumer centric to profit milking company with less feature improvements
  • OnePlus also clarified that it won't be updating 5g bands through software updates on it's phones and calls it to be a "hardware limitation"
  • I think oneplus will loose out market share in premium devices in days to come 


    "Thank you for your patience and reading the full-article"

Credits and references :

Pics taken from gsmarena 

*-  It's time to stop buying one plus (article) 

^ OIS-Optical Image Stabilization helpful for those capturing photos with shaky hands and images will be much stable

OEM -Original equipment manufacturer,who has quality spare parts of the device