The OnePlus Phenomenon: A Story of Cut Corners and Loss of Identity

It's ridiculous to think that a brand new flagship phone like the OnePlus One could still use an old battery. This is not an ancient device that can't continue to work on an old battery, but a cutting-edge smartphone with all the bells and whistles. The fact that OnePlus is massively cutting the performance of their flagship phone to give you a little bit better battery life is unacceptable. It's like they're trying to trick consumers into thinking they're getting a better product than what they actually are.

This phenomenon is not unique to the OnePlus One, however. Two out of three guys will experience some form of male pattern baldness by the time they're 35. Prevention really is key when it comes to hair loss, and there's a more affordable option available through Keeps, a licensed doctor-reviewed treatment plan that can help prevent hair loss. The sooner you start using Keeps, the more hair you'll save.

But what about OnePlus? In their early days, OnePlus delivered excellent performance, value, and coolness. By enthusiasts for enthusiasts was absolutely the vibe of how they positioned their first phone back in 2014, the OnePlus One. It's hard to understand how excited people were about this phone today. We just so happen to have a brand new, still sealed in box, OnePlus One to take a look at.

As we open up the device, what immediately surprises us is its thinness. I've never held a OnePlus One before, and it feels far thinner than I had expected. The fact that it still has battery is mind-boggling. But, as we soon find out, this is not exactly a stress test. Despite being 4 years old, the device's responsiveness doesn't feel bad at all.

However, as we take a closer look, some questions start to arise about what the OnePlus company was all about from the very beginning. To understand, let me introduce BBK Electronics, a massive Chinese tech conglomerate that owns brands such as Oppo, Realme, Vivo, and OnePlus. Except, at least according to OnePlus at the time, they were definitely independent, right? Definitely.

But, it turns out that the CEO and co-founder of OnePlus, Pete Lau, had come straight from being the vice-president of Oppo, one of those BBK brands. This raises some interesting questions about the true nature of the OnePlus brand. In fact, in quite a few of the follow-up devices, ranged from sharing some parts to basically being identical hardware to Oppo devices.

A breakdown of many OnePlus phones by Android Central back in 2018 revealed that while OnePlus devices aren't just rebadged Oppo phones, it's hard to argue that there's not more than just a little, sharing the supply chain going on. It seems that the OnePlus brand has been integrated into Oppo since late 2020 and should be fully integrated by the end of 2021.

OnePlus will continue to exist as a somewhat distinct brand, but it's tough to see this as anything other than the plucky, never-settle startup being watered down and absorbed into the larger overall Oppo brand. The advantages for OnePlus having access to the larger resources that come with being integrated into the Oppo, BBK umbrella are clear, but do you think that the price for growth can come at the cost of completely losing that unique identity? Only time will tell.

The leaked memo dated from June 2021 spelled things out pretty clearly. The OnePlus brand has been integrated into Oppo since late 2020 and should be fully integrated by the end of 2021. OnePlus will continue to exist as a somewhat distinct brand, but it's tough to see this as anything other than the plucky, never-settle startup being watered down and absorbed into the larger overall Oppo brand.

The fact that we're seeing this integration now is not surprising. In July, OnePlus announced that their excellent, clean OxygenOS would be merging with Oppo's somewhat less clean ColorOS. Look, there are advantages for OnePlus having access to the larger resources that come with being integrated into the Oppo, BBK umbrella. But do you think that the price for growth can come at the cost of completely losing that unique identity? Only time will tell.

In fact, we're already seeing this start to happen. By allowing the OxygenOS codebase to merge with ColorOS, OnePlus is essentially sacrificing its unique identity for the sake of being part of a larger conglomerate. It's a trade-off that may seem reasonable at first, but one that could have long-term consequences for the brand.

As we look back on the history of OnePlus, it's hard not to feel a sense of disappointment and disillusionment. What was once a plucky startup with a clear vision and a commitment to innovation seems to have lost its way in the process of trying to grow and expand. The fact that OnePlus has been integrated into Oppo for so long is a stark reminder that even the most well-intentioned companies can get lost in the shuffle.

The story of OnePlus serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of sacrificing your values and principles for the sake of growth and expansion. As consumers, it's essential to be aware of these dynamics and to demand more from the brands we support. The future of OnePlus is uncertain, but one thing is clear: the company must find a way to reclaim its unique identity and reassert its commitment to innovation and excellence if it wants to survive in a crowded and competitive market.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- This video is sponsored by Keeps.OnePlus phones used to be my dream phone.OnePlus forgot thepurpose of its existence.It isn't the stockAndroid flagship anymore.They are lost as a company.Totally disappointedin what they've become.It feels like they justmake rebadged Oppos.Just another kind of cool Chinese phone.Over-promising and under-delivering.I feel disconnected from the brand.R.I.P. OnePlus.So this isn't a video Ireally thought I would make.I mean, I have been afan of OnePlus for years.I mean, how could younot love the scrappy,never-settle startup?That promised to stick it to the big guyslike Samsung and Apple.I mean, one of the smartestthings that OnePlus ever didwas from day one, theystarted with that laser focuson enthusiasts.Now, sure, OnePlus hadtheir fair share of issues,I mean, they certainlydidn't have the best cameras,but when you consider thatyou had clean software,a high-end processor, a great performance,and you had all of that whilepaying a fraction of the priceof a new Galaxy or a new iPhone,I mean the appeal, itwasn't hard to understand,but things have changed alot in the last few years.(bell dongs)So what really pushed me over the edgeinto making this videowas the recent discoverythat OnePlus has been secretlynerfing the performanceof their latest flagships.Now, OnePlus is not exactly a companythat has a clean track record,I mean, they've certainlygot up to some shenanigansin the past when it comes to benchmarks.So you're probablyfamiliar with how OnePlussends out phones to reviewersto take a look at, right?A lot of companies do this.However, in the past,some of these phoneswere slightly modifiedto deliver higher speedsthan the retail units.In some cases, OnePlus haveactually shipped devicesthat could recognize whenyou were running a benchmarkand crank the CPU all the way up to 100%,which is not something they could dofor pretty much anything else.Recently, Anandtech discovered somethingmuch more nefarious, OnePluswere running the phoneat a lower performance levelthan it's advertised as.So to understand why this matters so much,we've got to take a quickdetour into nerd town.So OnePlus uses theQualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipinside the OnePlus 9, whichis the exact same processorthat's used in a lot ofother Android flagships,such as the Galaxy S21.It utilizes a variationof the big.LITTLE designthat's basically standardon most mobile devices,including on iPhones.Put simply, it puts together four small,power-efficient CPU coresalongside four higher performing cores.Basically, it uses those performance coreswhen it needs it, butit saves battery lifewhen using the weakercores when it doesn't.Make sense, right?So this is a very powerful setupthat works great on devicessuch as the Galaxy S21.But on the OnePlus, well,let's just say that (beep)is out of whack.What OnePlus have done here,is that they have built a blacklistinside the operating system that willeither throttle the performancecores or even prevents themfrom lighting up altogether in most apps.Which means that the realworld ramifications of this,is that if your phone sees yourunning a copy of Geekbench,for example, it'll runcompletely normally,your benchmark will beexactly what you would expect.But if you're running most other thingslike, oh, I don't know, Chrome,it will not light upthose performance cores,meaning that you've paid money for a phonethat is delivering only afraction of the performancethat it is actually capable of.When called out for this, OnePlus,they at first gave a blanket statementon how they optimize for battery life,which just doesn't hold water,because even with this throttling,the OnePlus can't matchthe kind of battery lifeSamsung is able to deliverwith the exact same chip in the S21 line.Think about this, if it wereApple who had done this,and Apple is a good analogy herebecause they have gotteninto some serious (beep)for throttling phones secretly.So you might remember a few years ago,there was a lot of drama around the ideathat some iPhones were losing performance,and the result of that wasthat Apple were secretlythrottling the phones tokeep them from basicallypulling too much powerfrom their old batteriesand essentially crashing the phones.So they would slow the phone downin able to keep the phone at least usable,but in return, you wereslowly losing performancewithout really understanding why.Now that isn't great and theythen since have changed itwhere you can actually turn it on and off,that toggle in the settings.But at least that was for areason, it was on older phonesand it was because the phoneswere literally crashingif they didn't do something about it.And to be fair, OnePlus hasgone on to backtrack on this.So they have planned to addthat exact same kind of togglefor like a performance selectorx.Look, I like OnePlus,they've gotten a pass for this in a waythat basically no other companyshould have, in my opinion,I just can't in good conscience,turn a blind eye to this.It's ridiculous, right?This is not an old phonethat can't continue to workon an old battery, thisis a brand new flagshipthat they are massivelycutting the performance onto give you a littlebit better battery life,but they didn't tell anyone.The only way anyone even knows about thisis because Anandtech found it outand they were caught red-handed.Thank you to Keeps forsponsoring this video.Did you know that two out ofthree guys will experiencesome form of male patternbaldness by the time they're 35?With Keeps, a licensed doctorwill review your information onlineand recommend the right hairloss treatment plan for you.Then your treatment is shipped directlyto your door every three months.It's a more affordable optionsince Keeps offers generic versionsof the FDA approvedmedications for hair loss.Prevention really is key.Keeps treatments can take upto four to six months or moreto start seeing results, soit's important to act fast.The sooner you start usingKeeps, the more hair you'll save.If you're ready to takeaction to prevent hair loss,go to keeps.com/austinevans,or click the link in the descriptionto receive 50% off your first order.That's keeps.com/austinevans.So what exactly is going on with OnePlus?Now in those early days, they deliveredexcellent performance,value and they were cool.By enthusiasts for enthusiastswas absolutely the vibeof how they positioned theirfirst phone back in 2014,the OnePlus One.So this was a incredibly hyped phone,it's hard to understand how excited peoplewere about this phone today.And we just so happen to have a brand new,still sealed in box, OnePlusOne to take a look at.All right, and we have theminty fresh OnePlus Onestill with the plasticand the sandstone back.Wow.You know what immediately surprisesme about this phone?It's thin.I've never held a OnePlus One before.This actually feels farthinner than I had expected.(Austin gasps)How does it still have battery?What?I did not expect that to work.And you know what?I mean, obviously this isnot exactly a stress test,but I mean, the responsivenessdoesn't feel bad, right?Like this does not feellike an ancient device.This is 4K video on the OnePlus One.So I'll let you, fine viewer,be the judge of how farcamera quality has come.But let's just say even by 2014 standards,this wasn't exactly amazing.From the very beginning, there were,let's just say, lingering questions,about what the OnePluscompany was all about.To understand, let meintroduce BBK Electronics,a massive Chinese techconglomerate that owns brandssuch as, Oppo, Realme, Vivo,and OnePlus.Except, at least accordingto OnePlus at the time,they were definitelyindependent, right? Definitely.However, the CEO and co-founderof OnePlus, Pete Lau,had come straight from beingthe vice-president of Oppo,one of those BBK brands,which was also the same companywho directly invested inOnePlus and allowed OnePlusto share their supply chainand manufacturing space.So that beautiful new OnePlus Onethat took the tech world by storm,it bore an awfully interesting resemblanceto the Oppo Find 7a from itsvery much not-parent company.(Austin coughs sarcastically)In quite a few of the follow-up devices,ranged from sharing some parts,to basically being identicalhardware to Oppo devices.Android Central, all the way back in 2018,did a breakdown of many OnePlus phones,and it's pretty clearthat while OnePlus devicesaren't just rebadged Oppo phones,that in many cases, it's hard to arguethat there's a lot morethan just a little,sharing the supply chain going on.So there was a leakedmemo dated from June, 2021that spelled things out pretty clearly,the OnePlus brand has been integratedinto Oppo since late 2020,and should be fullyintegrated by the end of 2021.OnePlus will continue to existas a somewhat distinct brand.But to me, it's toughto see this as anythingother than the plucky,the never-settle startupbeing watered down and absorbedinto the larger overall Oppo brand.In fact, we've alreadystarted to see this.They announced back in July,that OnePlus' excellent,clean OxygenOS, and Oppo'ssomewhat, less clean ColorOS,would be merging their code bases.Look, there are advantagesfor OnePlus having accessto the larger resources that comewith being integrated intothe Oppo, BBK umbrella.But do you think that theprice for growth can comeat the cost of completely losing that"For enthusiasts by enthusiasts" mantrathat made OnePlus such acult hit in the first place?It's hard to see the future of OnePlusbeing anywhere nearwhat it was in the past.They will continue to make phones.They are really Oppo's andBBK's really only major footholdin the North American market, for example,but I don't think the soulof OnePlus is coming back.And anecdotally, a lot of the peoplewho I've known at OnePlus for years,have left over the last 6 to 12 months.It's not the samecompany that it once was.And it's fine.Enthusiast brands all around the worldwho were making these nichephones, such as LG and Sony,have been sort of rampingdown their devices,because at this point,if you're not Samsung,you're not OnePlus, you're not Xiaomi,it's difficult to really make a phonewhich is going to stand out.But OnePlus had that market,and they had it for a very long time.And it's sad, honestly.It's sad to see the brand,not go out with a bang,but almost with a whimperas it becomes generic.Businesswise, it'sprobably the right move.But for enthusiasts, formyself, for probably you,I don't think there'sany other way to put it,than OnePlus have settled.