alt Hacker NewsOnePlus halts operations in USA and Europe
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Editorialised! No new products, not halts operations. Please be more careful.
OnePlus has decided to conclude new product rollouts in Europe and North America.
The difference matters for those of us on OnePlus devices:
Though we will no longer launch new products in Europe, our commitment to you remains unchanged. Backed by OPPO, existing OnePlus devices will continue to receive scheduled software updates and security patches within the support periods originally committed for each device model.
Etc.
I'm not sure as others why others feel this is a major change.
OnePlus was always a subsidiary by Carl Pei [1] who eventually left the brand to create a new gadgets/tech company.
Nothing [2] is the next project he started that keeps many of the ideas started with OnePlus, good value for money and aim for quality Android.
Bootloader also seems to allow unlocking [3]
In recent years OnePlus was just another Chinese phone.
But if I've misunderstood something, I'll appreciate me being corrected.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Pei
[3] https://nothing.community/d/6047-policies-for-rootingunlocki...
The headline "Oppo stops sale under OnePlus brand in US and Europe" would be more appropriate.
OnePlus products were mostly slightly redesigned Oppo products for the past years, built on the same hardware and running the same OS.
Early-on it was an impressive corporate experiment to observe: The giant company Oppo gave one of its members Carl Pei the chance to create an agile sub-brand with an own OS and access to Oppo's supply chain.
Carl Pei succeeded and OnePlus became a disruptive force in many markets for several years.
But Carl Pei already left (to start the UK-based tech company 'Nothing'), the OnePlus OS was discontinued and product development was largely folded into Oppo many years ago already...
Loved my OnePlus One and ran nightlies of Cyanogenmod on it for quite a while. I had that bamboo wood backing on the phone that was really nice to the touch. Premium feel and a hacker phone.
It was quality and lasted for many years. I got it after I left the Apple ecosystem and my HTC One (M7) had become pretty banged-up.
I shifted away from OnePlus as it became more pricey and went with Samsung models over the last many years. I also no longer have as much time to play with LineageOS and nightlies anymore.
I did go back to OnePlus around the 10 series but wasn't impressed enough to keep it very long. I still use the red USB-C cables though.
I feel this is just a case where innovation eventually gives way and the Opportunity acquisition along with the data breach just made it less risk-adverse to innovate on features and pricing which has led to the pull-back.
OnePlus was fun when Cyanogenmod was edgy, etc. and you had the fight against the overwhelming crapware telcos forced on Android users. Still happening, sure, but unlocked phones and cleaner flavors of Android have mitigated a lot of that now.
They were one of the brands with unlockable bootloaders and slide switches for mute. Unfortunately the Oppo takeover didn't preserve either.
Written on a OnePlus 8 Pro.
When they increased prices to $900 for roughly the same quality as Samsung it was doomed.
The OnePlus 7 was such an amazing phone and honestly I remember buying a Pixel after it and realizing how crappy Tensor was and well optimized OnePlus was.
Can someone explain the reason? I think I understand the "WHAT". I don't understand the "WHY". Why are they not going to launch new products in US and EU?
It all started when Carl Pie left i suppose. Nothing devices are good but aren't cheap as one plus. They will i guess continue to move in Asia for now i guess.
I had a OP1, OP3, OP5 and OP7 pro or something before I switched back to Samsung. In the beginning they were flagship phones being sold for half prices, lately I've even forgotten about them.
I have a OnePlus Pad 3, bought for about $600, and it's great because it can show books and papers at approximately their real intended sizes.
Absolutely great value for the money.
The only downside is the constant nagging about OS updates.
If this one breaks, I guess it is time to learn Mandarin.
Its a pretty big loss for people who care about bootloader unlocking on devices. even the typically bootloader unlocking friendly companies (this includes oneplus in china at least) restricting bl unlocking, i dont know what happens next neither do i want to find out.
I usually don't get attached to brands, but this makes me sad.
I bought the OnePlus One in 2015 after Apple killed my iPhone 5's performance and I was told to just buy a new iPhone (this was before they were sued and added a setting to control throttling on "old" batteries). The phone was fast, had more storage than the iPhone, better camera, no bloat (it ran Cyanogen!), had a notification light, felt nice on the hand (sandstone back), and as a nerd, I loved the amount of Android custom ROMs for it. Liked it so much that at one point everyone at home was using OnePlus Ones.
Also had my disappointments. The OnePlus 2 kept overheating (mainly due to the terrible Snapdragon 810), the camera on the OnePlus 3 wasn't as good as their social media posts made me believe, the slow/lack of software updates, etc, but they were cheap devices.
My last OnePlus was the 8 Pro. By the time I gave it away, it was no longer the same old OnePlus. OxygenOS was replaced by ColorOS (even if they kept the old name), which I never really liked, and prices kept increasing even though some of the weaknesses were still there, etc. It was time to move on.
Still have an old OnePlus One "bacon". No longer use it, but during the Covid years I wiped it and installed LineageOS (currently runs LOS 18.1/Android 11 from August 2023). The battery is bad and the display has some discolouration around the edges, but still runs:
Loved my oneplus2, the rest were mediocre at best.
Went from great value hardware with open, minimalist software to overpriced hardware and shitty bloated software.
Great example of how chasing short term wins can bleed you dry over a few years
Man, I flippin loved the OnePlus One. Such a bold device. I still miss that sandstone back all these years later. It made the phone a breeze to hold.
This is sad. I had a couple of one plus phones. I'm developing an app on one right now, and I told my mom to get one. She had it for eight years, and it's still working. Well, this is the final push, I guess, that I needed to get a Pixel and install GrapheneOS.
All my phones for the past 12 years were OnePlus - but I don't buy anything over $450/500. Last few years it seems like everything was $700 or more.
The linked site actually says "North America", which has been incorrectly editorialized to "USA". This is misleading because their announcement appears intended to also cover Canada.
The OnePlus One was exciting because I think it genuinely was an Android-flagship-competitor at a much lower price. Prices crept up though, and the last OnePlus I owned was the 5 which was still pretty excellent!
After a brief, very annoying stint using the Fairphone 4 (underpowered & expensive, though I did actually replace both the battery and the usb c port myself and it was exactly as easy as promised), I'm now finally on a Samsung S25+, though I did really really consider the newest OnePlus.
Sad to know that it won't even be an alternative for my next phone, though hopefully by then, memory/silicon prices will have settled and Nothing will have their own flagship alternatives.
Since they became Oppo in a wig there's really been no reason to buy their products.
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat...
“The lawmakers said a recent analysis by a commercial company provided to the committee indicates that these devices may potentially collect and transmit extensive user data -- including sensitive personal information to servers under Chinese jurisdiction without explicit user consent.”
What a shame, the OnePlus 15 is an excellent phone, especially due to one of the longest battery lives of any I've seen recently, easily lasting 2 days without charging and even acts as a powerbank for reverse charging my wireless earbuds.
I guess I'll have to import Chinese phones now for the US, that's where the innovation is rather than the Apple Samsung duopoly currently present in the US.
I've owned four OnePlus phones, but I've been buying other brands lately.
1. OnePlus became nearly as expensive as flagships but wasn't as good 2. The official software used to be almost-stock Android but they bloated it up 3. The ROM scene came to steadily lag several generations behind phone releases 4. Android/OnePlus ROMs are a worse experience than they used to be (dealing with proprietary camera drivers, SafetyNet) 5. They didn't keep pace when other brands committed to longer OS updates
They used to be a good bargain, a clean OS, and a good modding target if you wanted a ROM anyway.
The first two haven't been true for a while now, and the third became a lot less appealing on OnePlus.
I'm disappointed to see OnePlus go but the brand I loved has been gone for years.
Still running on OnePlus 5. The ideal phone in my opinion.
Never good when a highly innovative player disappears. Maybe they lost their northern star when Carl left.
I had heard a lot of good things about their smartwatches and was planning to get one. I guess I will have to import one via Chinese stores now.
I don't even feel about this as I think I should feel. I've owned the OnePlus One, 2, 6 and now 12. Since I got it I haven't been fond of the restrictions which I guess piled up over 7-11, particularly the hell I faced when I wanted to update (but am now avoiding any more updates due to the Anti-Rollback Protection thing they're rolling out). It's still a very sturdy and performant device and I don't intend to upgrade for maybe another 8 years, but I'm already looking to move to another brand (NOT Samsung nor Google) when the time inevitably comes.
Wow. I love my OnePlus 15 and plan to use it as long as I can. I guess it'll be some sort of GrapheneOS setup next.
I had a OnePlus 6 before switching to iphones. Great device.
But the company was doomed the moment they started raising prices to Samsung levels. Lost any reason to buy them.
It doesn't really matter for One plus/Oppo/Vivo/Realme/IQOO they all share the same parent BBKE, even they share same OS (at least for some variants), and hardware is very identical across the models, its better they if they reduce it to two sub-brands instead this will atleast reduce consumer's confusion and dilemma while making the purchase.
Why none of these Chinese brands doesn't try to set themselves apart, and dare i say innovate by making a true open phone, documented hw, etc, with at least an open version of android, i don't even ask for one of the true Linux OSes.
LOL, I wondered why their EU store had basically no stock and remaining items (which I may have snagged only yesterday!) were listed at firesale prices.
It has been known for a while that they were going to do this. They have multiple brands and sales aren't strong enough to keep them all.
Posted yesterday (not source): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48923436 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48922412
The OnePlus 3 was my first proper smartphone and the best phone I ever used. Running Lineage, it's faster and more responsive, even today, than a $1000 iPhone from 2024. The quality was amazing. It's a shame to have seen their slow decline over the years as they chased expensive and unpopular hardware trends. RIP
Is this leading to shutting down OnePlus in a global market? I was an early consumer of OnePlus and how it distrupted the market on those time. Sad to see, they cannot sustained with new innovations and ended up being generic in the current market.
I preferred OnePlus over Oppo simply because OnePlus phones visually look cleaner, despite likely being from the same design team.
It seems Oppo (and Chinese OEMs in general) are allergic to symmetrical camera bumps.
I have a OnePlus 3t, a 5, and a Nord N200.
The last model was quite difficult to unlock and reload with LineageOS.
Had that not been the case, this announcement may not have been necessary.
Wondering what's going on with Canada. I checked out their site yesterday out of curiosity and most products were listed as out of stock.
They were pushing people to OPPO for a long time now its not really a surprise
OnePlus One (aka "bacon") changed the industry
Sad :( I love my OnePlus 13R. The battery life is amazing and the stock skin is close enough to pure Android that it doesn't bother me.
HN headline needs a change. It's North America, not just the USA.
The oneplus open (2023) is such a great phone, what a shame
OnePlus had operations in the USA?
This came out of nowhere, I was even considering getting a OnePlus.
I remember when OnePlus marketed themselves as the sort of inexpensive flagship. These past few cycles they've certainly been flagship phones but I don't think there's really been a differentiator.
Almost 5 billion humans have smartphones - as a species wide achievement its utterly incredible. And yet there are two major manufacturers and not even ten with 100M plus handsets (apple, Samsung, xiaomi, oppo, vivo, huawei)
This is a strategic risk right up there with AI ans starlink - and while we don’t want it to stay this way, it’s even harder to imagine how to fix it.
we are descending into a balkanised world of trade wars and threats. Imagine huawei, or apple being told by their respective governments to turn off security services for phones in europe, for example.
It’s not just an AI arms race.
(My tentative solution is governments start to handout devices that provide NFC digital IDs and start growing from there… but that’s a long way from “as good as apple”
That's too bad. Had exactly 2 OnePlus devices in the past 8 years.
My current one is a 4 year old Nord 2T still going strong, and in fact K am surprised it still received a recent security update when EOL has been reached.
Time is approaching to switch to a new device. Not sure where to go next. Perhaps I'll wait for the GrapheneOS device.
OnePlus is one of the saddest stories out there. It was the hacker's choice for a while. It was originally the "Never Settle" phone that ran mostly stock android, had specs maxxed out, price was great, and bootloader was unlocked plus they provided factory images. Those were all reasons I bought a lot of OnePlus phones in the early years.
Then they flushed nearly all of it down the toilet. The day they stopped posting factory images was the day I saw the writing on the wall. Such a shame.