OnePlus halts operations in USA and Europe
community.oneplus.com477 points by pilililo2 10 hours ago
477 points by pilililo2 10 hours ago
I worked for OnePlus a few years ago, managing its Amazon account.
The culture leaned heavily toward 996: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. I was there during a particularly tumultuous period, and by that point a lot of the staffing had already been hollowed out.
That said, the OnePlus 11, 12, 13, and 15 are great phones. The 13 and 15 in particular have insane battery life. I have never managed to drain either one to zero in a single day.
As far as I know, OnePlus and Motorola are also the only major companies selling phones with silicon-carbon batteries in the United States. It is ridiculous that Samsung and Apple still have not adopted them.
One of my biggest frustrations at OnePlus was how much of the internal tooling remained in Chinese or used poor English translations. Most of the management was also based in China and often did not seem to understand the US market very well.
Probably the most ridiculous example was an internal invoice or payment-submission portal. It was awful to use, but the terminology was even stranger. A submission apparently needed to be “signed” and then “sealed.”
I never asked anyone what the original Chinese term was, but I assumed it referred to the use of a Chinese name chop or company seal. Name chops are stone stamps bearing a person’s or company’s name that are pressed into ink and applied to documents as a form of authorization.
It was a small thing, but it captured the broader problem pretty well: internal processes designed around Chinese business practices were translated literally and then handed to US employees with very little localization.
> A submission apparently needed to be “signed” and then “sealed.”
... and delivered?
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.
> had specs maxxed out
Indeed, their 10 year old flagship has 6GB of RAM.
https://www.gsmarena.com/oneplus_3-7995.php
(for comparison, last year's iPhone 17 has just 8GB or RAM, 9 years later)
Yeah I remember buying a OnePlus 7 Pro with 12 GB (!) of RAM like 7 years ago. The processor was also bleeding edge and that sucker ripped. It combined with stuff like termux was so capable that I used it to run all kinds of stuff that makes little sense on a normal phone. The day that phone retired (from drop damage) was heartbreaking*.
* It actually ran even longer after that as various utilities but not a daily driver, but when I didn't have it with me all the time the convenience slowly waned and it got forgotten
That's the phone I was using too. Gave it to my wife a couple years ago and she used it until just a couple months ago when it too suffered a fatal drop. Very sad.
Good phone. I was worried about that pop up camera failing at some point, but it never did
Indeed, that pop up camera worried me too but was never an issue. It survived lots of pocket lint, and even beach sand and was always reliable. I'd easily trade the current "notch" approach on most phones for a pop up camera (assuming similar quality).
Same. Oneplus showed that the pop up camera was a perfectly workable approach for the front camera instead of using a notch.
Boy, do I miss the amount of diversity and innovation we used to have in cell phones. I remember having this phone [1] which put the camera on a little rotating thing so you could use the same one for front or back facing - obviously this either saves money or means they have twice the budget for the cameras as if they had two.
Obviously these cameras themselves were potato cameras compared to modern ones, but this design was still a great innovation and unique. We rarely get many design ideas that are that different today, as everyone mainly just wants to look like an iPhone, and Apple for its part only sits around obsessing on how they can make the iPhone's form more and more featureless and pure.
Not an apples to apples comparison#. iOS uses way less ram than android, plus has memory compression. That’s why Apple gets away with less ram and much smaller batteries with equal or better performance.
# pun intended
Of course it's not an apple to apple comparison, the iPhone 7 from the same year was 50% more expensive and had only one third of the RAM (2 GB)
plus has memory compression.
FYI, Android has had zRAM support since KitKat, which is from (checking notes) 2013. Same year as iOS.
iOS uses way less ram than android
Common measurements I have seen is around 40%, I wouldn't say way less, but it is definitely less. Still, 3x more for a model in the same year is impressive (and more than needed to be competitive with iOS) and we should give OnePlus credit for it.
Sadly a lot of low-ish to midrange phones are going back or sticking to 6-8GB today, thanks to the RAM squeeze and the efficiency of iOS is certainly helping Apple here. Certainly nobody is going to complain about the performance of the iPhone 17, despite only having 8GB RAM.
In Android, Samsung doesn't seem to suffer as much. You can pick up an S26 here with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage for 623 Euro, which is a nice midrange price. I guess there are benefits if you can produce your own memory.
> 623 Euro, which is a nice midrange price [for a phone].
How did we get here?
Apple is already past that, with the entry-level 17e starting at 700 Euro. The midrange regular 17 starts at 950 Euro. And according to rumors those prices are likely to increase in spring if not earlier.
> entry-level 17e starting at 700 Euro
Which is 30% less than the original iPhone accounting for inflation.
iPhone 1 launched at 649 Euros in France in 2007 money, or about 980 Euros today.
Given inflation and the increased utility of the smartphone, we're almost certainly at the lowest cost per hour of use ever for most people.
> for most people
For most people, salaries have not kept up with inflation
What's funny is that due in part to minimum wage laws (which caused some of the inflation) the lowest quintile is arguably the one who's kept up with inflation better than the rest, meaning there has been an improvement in the wealth inequality department. But nobody talks about it. Meanwhile I've lost like 20% of my buying power to inflation in the past 3-4 years even taking the meager raises into account.
> iOS uses way less ram than android, plus has memory compression. That’s why Apple gets away with less ram and much smaller batteries with equal or better performance.
Yeah, by aggressively purging all my Safari tabs (and Apps) unexpectedly, during the most convenient times, like when I'm going through a tunnel on the train and my cellular connection is at its best. Still infuriatingly common on my 17 Pro with 12GB of RAM.
Regarding memory compression: isn't the use of `zswap` and `zram` commonplace on embedded Linux at this point?
"Hacker's choice" phones don't appear to sell enough to justify the costs, although they can be a decent strategy for building the initial brand awareness.
Financially speaking, OPPO was right to gut OnePlus all those years ago and streamline their production into selling the same models (with minor tweaks) under the brands that are more known in this or that region. Saves on hardware and software development costs a lot, and once OnePlus was a household brand among the general public it no longer had to appeal to the hacker crowd anyway.
Sad as it is. I bought the One when they were still invite-only and mained it for years, amazing device for the time. Went a bit full circle and using a Nord 3 right now, but I didn't get it because of the brand (just needed a basic secondary smartphone for traveling and got a good deal on it, it's clearly just a generic OPPO brick).
You're probably right, but I would have been willing to tolerate price increases if they hadn't compromised all the other things though (especially factory images, which heavily chilled rooting/mods). I wonder what would have happened if they'd stuck with high end devices (with maybe a low-end line too) and not compromised on the hackability. For me at least I'd still be using them today as long as the price didn't get ridiculous (i.e. stayed in the ballpark with other flagships)
Do these kinds of products have to sell as many units as a phone targeting the general population? I mean, most of the target audience will hear about a new release / iteration from blog posts, tech news sites, etc., so marketing doesn't need that much resources.
Other than that, I guess it's also not necessary to fill every casual store like MediaMarkts, etc. because unlike my grandma, tech savvy people can order online.
But I'm not knowledgable on these things, so it's mostly just me thinking out loud.
> 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.
For me, it was when the killed the headphone jack with the OnePlus 6T. Around the time OP6 was released, the then CEO Carl Pei posted a poll around the headphone jack - a overwhelming majority of users said they used/wanted the jack - something like 80%+). Then they go ahead and release the 6T (and subsequent models) with no jack. At this point most of the OG fans (including myself) felt incredibly betrayed and vowed to never buy another OnePlus again. And soon, Carl Pei himself left the company and it's been downhill ever since.
The OP6 was their last good phone which actually lived up to their "flagship killer" premise without compromising on features.
I still remember the wait lists for OP1, 2 and 3. OnePlusX was the sexiest looking phone anyone ever released, before and since.
what makes the OnePlusX look good to you? Just looked it up, it has the standard smartphone look
Really a shame. I had a original 1 (flagship killer) a 3t, a 6t, a 7t a 9 something..I now own a nothing phone.
Their move to ColorOS away from the fully customized stock Android experience with OxygenOS was the nail in the coffin for me.
The overall experience turned terrible, and so many aspects of the OS were changed or worsened for all the wrong reasons. Everything from pulling the notification drawer and managing notifications, to the castrated home screen functionality, was such a disappointment.
This is exactly it. Every competitive advantage they had against larger brands was removed.
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.
Curiosly, they only say this to their European customers. It isn't clear that they plan to continue supporting North American customers.
Either way, eventually operations will halt, because existing products will be out of their update commitments.
Headline would be more accurate if it said "is winding down".
The headline would be more appropriate if it said "Oppo stops Sales under OnePlus brand"
For the past years OnePlus wasn't much more than a sub-brand for slightly redesigned Oppo devices anyway...
Americans get another message that's similar: https://www.oneplus.com/us/adjustment
I agree, title should have been done a lot better than that.
I think we can read between the lines of the PR speak, though. That’s the rosiest possible way to put this news.
No new devices, support during warranty periods, they’re going to basically stop existing within a year or two.
They're also shuttering their (US) community site in 30 days.
Q: When will the communityus.oneplus.com close?
A: The communityus.oneplus.com will close on 11:59PM ET,August 16, 2026.
Support period != warranty period. The OnePlus 15 will get 4 years of Android updates and 6 years of security patches.
Will it? My level of doubt is high. There is very little recourse if the company decides to cease operations, which I think they will in the near future.
I think they could easily argue successfully that post-sale software updates were always contingent on continuing operation of the company.
After two years your battery will be almost unusable so genuinely it doesn't matter.
My only issue with oneplus phones, and I owned several of them already, is that they are running incredibly hot on normal usage, and battery capacity detoriates quickly over time.
They do have a great sleek UI and great hardware, not to mention fantastic supercharging capabilities which is a life saver sometimes, but all under the big cost.
Hmm my OnePlus 12 is 26 months old and battery is still phenomenal. I charge it to 80% and easily get a day of use, plugging in each night at 30-40%. I have not experienced it running hot yet.
I did not have battery issues with my OnePlus 7 Pro or OnePlus 9 Pro either. The 7 Pro gave me 3 days of battery! (I upgraded for camera improvements and faster screen refresh rate.)
My last one was 10 pro and battery is essentially dead after 2.5 years of usage. Can't make half of a day, literally unusable, and I'm not a big phone user. Case is made of some really good material, which feels very premium, but runs son fckn hot that you can't hold it in your hands anymore, this is especially true during hot summers, and it got only worse with the last major OS update. This is a heat dissipation issue caused by the materials used, large battery, and hi performance CPU cores so I don't think my case was any special than the others.
I see that the OnePlus 15 follows the same route, and although it has good reviews, and they claim they solved the battery heat dissipation and detoriation issues with some new kind of cells, it seems that it still runs hot according to some reviews I've seen on the yt.
Before that I had OnePlus 7 and more budget friendly Nord, and they were much better than 10 Pro, although 7 shared similar type of issues as 10 Pro. Nord is a bit different because case is not premium, and the battery is not so large, and the CPU is not premium nor the supercharging as well. However, it doesn't run hot and battery after few years of usage is still able to give you a full day without the problem.
I'm pretty convinced that all their flagships with hi performance CPUs, premium case, large battery, and fast charging suffer from the same issues.
Maybe mixed CPU core architecture is an answer to that issue, which might suggest why is so prevailing in other phone manufacturers but I have not dig that deep into the topic
> it seems that it still runs hot according to some reviews I've seen on the yt.
Never noticed it being even warm in normal use, consistently cold.
> this is especially true during hot summers
Sounds like not a phone problem -- very high screen brightness and/or direct sun would make any phone hot.
I am not an idiot, I am not keeping my phone on direct sunlight neither do I run on "very high brightness". The phone runs hot on normal circumstances, and in summer when the temperatures are getting higher it becomes unbearable. I hope you understand now.
I've misread that you're having consistent problems across different models, sorry.
If it's just 10 Pro, then google says Qualcomm was having bad years (I've heard about Snapdragon 888 fiasco, but apparently it extended to 8 Gen 1 in OP10)
Oneplus 15 uses a Si/C battery like other higher end Chinese phones currently. It doesn't get hot during normal operation (I don't play games on it) and since I don't use fast charging, for now it looks like it will work for a long time. Still get easily 2 days on a 80% charge.
> After two years your battery will be almost unusable so genuinely it doesn't matter.
Is this a new thing with newer OnePlus phones? We've had a OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 8 in our house for years and their batteries still work fine.
I had a similar issue with OnePlus 7 but not at this scale. It lasted me for 3, 3.5 years. I think this is becoming a problem more increasingly because of a beefier and beefier hardware that is put into these phones, and the heat dissipation problem hence becomes larger and larger problem which doesn't get automagically solved. I think that the best bet today is to take one with "subpar" CPU and larger battery and not so crazy supercharging capabilities
Interesting -- I thought OnePlus batteries were supposed to wear down LESS than other phones specifically because of their "High amp" charging technique versus "High voltage". After some quick research it seems this is mostly due to the heat generated during charging happens in the charger brick instead of the phone, keeping the heat away from the battery. But I suppose in real world situations it may not have a huge effect.
> After two years your battery will be almost unusable
After two years increasingly complex web apps will have made your hardware obsolete. Batteries can be swapped, bad web development at scale cannot be fixed.
Are you all making sure to set charge limits at night?
Set charge limits to 70%, supposedly quadruples your battery's life (in charging cycles).
My iPhones' batteries have all lasted a minimum of 5 years.
Having said that, my Nokia E71 and Communicator batteries are still usable after 20+ years.
> After two years your battery will be almost unusable so genuinely it doesn't matter.
My Nord 2T battery is still perfectly fine after 4 years.
I have no idea what the hell you're talking about.
Please see my other comment wrt Nord. What I am talking about is that flagship phones from OnePlus are suffering from the issues I described. I can't say every one of each suffers since my N=1 but the ones with the same characteristics and features I described above I am pretty sure that they do. There's a fundamental design flaw or we may call it a tradeoff.
Sad I have a 6 year old oneplus and was looking for a new phone somewhat soon, would've considered them again for sure. Any alternatives? They always had a reputation for me for being a great no fuss, little bloat and simply fast android phone.
Google’s phones are pretty good nowadays, I feel like they carry that ethos more than modern OnePlus phones anyway. Plus they can be unlocked trivially, which is officially supported, and you can install GrapheneOS on them.
I buy Pixel for GrapheneOS, but the hardware is terrible for the price. They charge flagship prices for what are mid-range SoCs. They are very heavy for the size (e.g. the 10/10 Pro are around 205g) and the weight distribution makes them feel like a brick. Battery life is very mediocre, even with almost no apps or other crap installed. They have also had a lot of hardware/software issues in recent years - spicy pillows, display issues, camera bars that fall off, software updates that resulted in boot loops for many people, etc. In (most of?) Europe, they farmed out repairs to another company and often reject warranty claims if there is as much as a scratch on the case.
I would only recommend Pixel if you want to run GrapheneOS. GrapheneOS is stellar and until next year, getting a Pixel is the only way to run it. Also, wait until midway the cycle of a model to get a large discount.
If you do not want to run GrapheneOS, do yourself a favor and either:
1.) Get a Samsung S series (or maybe A5x). It's the only phone besides Pixel that does reliable monthly updates, QPR2 and rolls out major updates fairly quickly. They have a separate secure enclave (Knox Vault). Also, after a few months the pricing is really good (e.g. an S26 with 256GB storage costs 620 Euro here now). You can pretty much remove all of the bloat, including Gemini, Google hot words, Bixby, etc. with UAD. The SoC, battery life, etc. will blow Pixels out of the water.
2.) Get an iPhone. The most secure phone after GrapheneOS and the hardware is well worth the price. Their support is stellar, easy to reach a human by phone, generally easy to get repairs.
> GrapheneOS is stellar and until next year, getting a Pixel is the only way to run it.
I'm hoping the Moto GrapheneOS phones will be solid. They will be my new primary option if so.
I just got a new phone a month ago. I wanted a Pixel so I could run GrapheneOS. After researching the hardware I ended up with a OnePlus 13. Google's hardware is far behind, buggy, and overpriced.
I have a OnePlus 13. Best hardware ever. Running lineage with microg + magisk and use nix on top of termux to install stuff using sudo, including AI harnesses - it's my portable AI workstation now.
But a pixel is quite a bit more expensive no? At that point you can consider an iPhone?
If you'd prefer an Iphone if it weren't for price, you should probably have a look at refurbished Iphones.
If you are the kind of person who unlocks the bootloader and installs GrapheneOS, then definitely not.
The Pixel can run Graphene, which means you can permanently take control of the phone and give Google the boot. The iPhone is entirely controlled by Apple, and you are one OTA away from a hostile "upgrade." By default, everything on your phone is sent to Apple for "backup" too.
I have had a mixed experience. Bought my Mom a Pixel 9a. It seems to be running fine with no issues.
Bought a Pixel 10 Pro XL for myself and had to return it. Connectivity issues (WiFi connected, but no internet), screen losing colors (white would turn gray), ghosting issues (scrolled/hidden content would stay on screen for a period of time).
Try GrapheneOS?
Bit hard to do with a phone I no longer have in my hand. Additionally, I wasn't sure if that would void my warranty.
It did cross my mind, and I did buy it for the possibility to do that in the future if necessary, but I just wasn't in the position to actually do so.
People need to stop caring about warranties so much. Don't overpay, and have emergency funds. If you break something, fix it or replace it. When someone dropped my phone and cracked the screen, I spent 300€ on a new phone. Not 3000€ because I'm not an idiot.
Thanks for calling me an idiot I guess ...
I mean, I don't particularly understand how "caring about warranty" goes against what you've written after that. Replacing something for free is surely better than doing so for $300 dollars, no?
Are you saying I should have installed GrapheneOS on the phone, possibly discovered that the phone has hardware issues and then go out to buy another phone because I have an emergency fund? Or stick with a new phone that had issues?
Or maybe I have made a mistake by buying a phone more expensive than $300? I can see this one actually, but I was going for something that didn't have ads in every menu as the cheap Chinese phones I was using up until this point.
Outside of the used market, which I tend to ignore due to battery/performance degradation, there's no way for me to buy a Pixel for less than $300 anyways.
It isn't a free replacement. It's a $50 for a 50% chance of replacement if you need a replacement, and if you don't you still have to pay the $50.