Previously on Lemmy: Motorola
Maybe we should just make this a series now.
Never settle for Oneplus.
I’ve always felt that Oneplus is a brand that I should like on principle of having clean software with barebones but powerful hardware, but in reality, every single Oneplus phone I’ve seen always had some sort of big BUTs attached to them, so buying Oneplus always feels like settling.
Take the Oneplus One for example, that sandstone textured cover was THE most creative material I felt a phone could have had, and I’m honestly shocked nobody has ever done it again. But along with that of course, comes with the cringy “smash your phone” marketing campaign, the half-hearted attempt to distance themselves from their parent company Oppo, the whole software mess with CyanogenMod/OxygenOS, etc.
Had a Oneplus 3T for a while, same deal: Great phone when it works as intended, but they raised their price without making the phone better, and the inexplicable random restarts/battery drain is so irritating, never had another phone that does that.
Recently they’ve dropped all pretense of not being Oppo and abandoned their core audience, choosing to have the “courage” to drop the headphone jack. Mediocre Chinese phones with flagship specs are a dime a dozen, I just don’t see a reason to buy them anymore.
I had a OnePlus 3T that lasted me 4 years. It served me well and I liked the design on hardware and software, but my biggest complaint was their way too overly aggressive killing of background apps. I remember numerous times where I would be listening to music and if I switched to another app it would kill my music after a few minutes. I guess it helped on battery benchmarks but the usability really suffered.
And by the time I was ready to get a new phone, they were just as expensive as everyone else without a clear vision or distinction to set them apart. I had also heard too many support issues to feel comfortable spending that much on a phone compared to the other options, so they ended up losing me as a repeat customer.
I remember being so excited after getting my 3T to introduce people to OnePlus as a great performance/software/price combo since they still weren’t that well-known outside of enthusiast communities at the time, and I was disappointed to see the direction they’ve ended up going.