this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2023
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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.

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[–] ArghZombies 23 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Used to be high spec and a low price. Now they're average spec and an above-average price.

Nowadays phones are all pretty similar in price and spec, so I'd rather get a slightly more expensive phone from a company with proven, accessible warranty.

[–] MargotRobbie 7 points 1 year ago

I think Oneplus is a proven company, it's just that they've always proved themselves to be mediocre.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm using a OnePlus 6 right now. I've never had a problem, and I'll probably stick with the brand.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They used to be great value, good specs for affordable prices, then slowly turned into premium shit when they got more popular. Same happening with Nothing now.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Exactly that, they were great until 4 or 5, I think. Then they became premium. It's kinda a version of enshittifcation for hardware makers: Pander to enthusiast community at the start, get some marketshare and mindshare, then go premium and raise prices, abandoning the original group of fans.

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[–] ljdawson 15 points 1 year ago

Pre ColorOS they were my goto. These days Pixel all the way.

[–] applejacks 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I used to love them.

I "won" the opportunity to get the OnePlus One.

Was such a great device, I love flashing ROMs on it, even got the bamboo back.

Pretty much every device since the first has been just a slow transition into being your average phone OEM.

They are nothing special anymore.

And now that other OEMs have less crappy skins (and OnePlus' skin got worse) there's really no reason to buy them anymore.

Kinda sad.

[–] MargotRobbie 4 points 1 year ago

Kinda like reddit, I suppose.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I had a few Oneplus phones, but the 7 pro was my last of theirs. the 5 and 7 pro were phenomenal phones and the 7 pro is still one of my favorites phones ever. That being said, I didn't like the direction they were going and the full merge with Oppo so that oneplus phones are basically stripped down version of Oppo phones, just soured me to them completely. Then you have their non-existent customer service reputation and they've been put on my list to avoid.

I was a huge fan of Oneplus, but will not buy any of their products again

[–] jasparagus 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Agreed on the OP 7 Pro being pretty great, up until the last major android update that kind of killed it. I ended up having to switch it over to the Pixel Experience ROM for stability reasons.

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[–] Dark_Blade 9 points 1 year ago

You summed up my feelings on OnePlus perfectly. There was a time I liked their phones (purely because they offered great hardware and a barebones Android experience) but then their devices progressively got worse in every single way. Now, not a single one of their overpriced phones is worth buying.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Have a Oneplus 7 Pro, first Oneplus phone I've owned and it will be the last. Absolutely love the phone itself, but Oneplus as a company, the software they package, the warranty issues, and the direction they've gone as a value pick have all fallen off a cliff since it was produced, and have turned me off to ever upgrading to one of their newer models. That's fine for me though, I have replacement parts on-hand, and a third-party actually maintained rom, so I'm OP7P until the wheels fall off this thing.

Edit: Can't comment with experience on other OP phones, but I've heard very good things about the 6s, it was my second pick when I was looking for a phone at the time.

[–] ace_garp 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes OP 7Pro here too.

7Pro with the popup cam and no notch is the perfect layout. My previous OP 5T had easier singlehand use, a handy notification LED and was without the silly curved screen edges

7Pro is still a sweet phone today, but is the last one designed with the original company ethos.

I'll roll with this one as long as possible and then look at battery replacement and LineageOS to really make it shine.

Getting GCam 7.3.018 by Urnyx05 Vers 2.1 made the camera about 10x better.

Zero chance of going to any OP 8 - OP 11.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Most of the OnePlus series, including older models, is fully supported by LineageOS, and unlocking the bootloader is straightforward. That were the most important reasons for me to go OnePlus. For me and my family there was nothing else comparably easily supported by Lineage with a good price/performance ratio. We currently use 6T and 8T models, that we bought used. The only downside for me is the lack of a notification light.

[–] CosmicCat 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

So short answer, I really love them but I'm keeping a cautious eye on their choices.

Full disclosure, this is coming from my OP11, so I'm a little bit biased, but this is absolutely the best phone I've ever had. And mind you, my previous phone was the OP7Pro which is an incredible device that STILL works like new after 3 years. So personally, they've been good to me.

However, I am keeping a close eye on their OS and software decisions. I was a little hesitant about this phone at first. The Android 11 OxygenOS was perfect on my OP7Pro. I upgraded to 12 (their merger with ColorOS if I'm not mistaken) and it was just a mess. For the first time since buying it, my OP7Pro had random bugs and stuttering. I immediately reverted to Android 11 and it was back to perfect. Unfortunately, the OP7Pro will no longer receive updates, so if I wanted to try the newest OxygenOS, I needed to upgrade.

OP11 starts with OxygenOS 13 and is slated to receive 5 years of updates, which is awesome for longevity. Some of the decisions they made after the terrible OxygenOS 12 (many changes to the OS, releasing the OP11 as the only flagship without a Pro later in the year, etc.) gave me hope that they recognized their mistakes and were willing to fix them. I decided to give them another shot and got the OP11 in April.

The software is still missing a few (minor) things I liked from OxygenOS 11, but Android 13 makes up for it with some interesting features. And this might be an unpopular opinion, but I actually like what they're doing with the OxygenOS 13 skin. It's hard to describe since there are a lot of small things I probably noticed unconsciously, but I haven't had any bugs and it's been a dream with this device. I do feel like they're listening to their customers again, and trying to get back on our good sides.

In the past I've been burnt by Samsung and LG, but OnePlus hasn't ever let me down (except that atrocious OxygenOS 12, but again, I skipped it). So long as they keep making the effort to listen to their customers and keep pushing the changes/additions we want to see, I'll keep buying their devices and running their OS. Of course if I see a repeat of 12 with OxygenOS 14, I honestly might bail. 12 was so bad I'm never doing that again.

I realize this is kind of rambly, so please let me know if you want me to clarify anything.

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[–] TwinTurbo 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They have good hardware, but their software is—or, at least, feels—unreliable. With so many digital interactions virtually expecting to be done from a mobile device these days, the last thing I want is for the phone to glitch and give up on me when I need it. Yes, customization is nice, but these days I value reliability much more than that, even more than performance in some respects. Unfortunately, that mostly leaves Samsung and Apple as options for "reliable" software...

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[–] FlashZordon 6 points 1 year ago

They had their time in the sun. Their first few phones were pretty good in terms of price to performance. 7 Pro were peak One Plus.

Every phone after that just got more and more bland with hardly any feature to make them stand out from the rest of the competition.

[–] Ragincloo 5 points 1 year ago

I'm pretty happy with my 8. No issues really besides lacking a standard headphone jack, I lost the one it came with and just use Bluetooth though

[–] solidgrue 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

My 5T has been my daily driver for years. I've replaced the battery & USB port on it once so far, and that's it. I've also run LineageOS (rooted + Magisk) since day 1, which I agree is its own set of challenges. Seriously no complaints and I'm not really shopping for anything more right now.

If the Fairphone 5 specs are solid I may take the plunge, but for my needs nothing else out there has been compelling enough to make a change.

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[–] danielfgom 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I don't like them. I think they are trying to be Apple and I hate that because it means higher prices, fewer features. No headphone jack, no SD card slot, no dual SIM, high prices.

That's not meant to be the Android way. Android is all about choice and options. That's what I love about Sony, and why I have a Sony Xperia 10iii - they give you more: award winning design, sleek form factor, fantastic cameras, headphone jack, SD card slot, dual SIM, waterproofing, easily removable SIM tray, notification LED, battery care, long battery life, great OLED screen, NFC, HiRes audio on wired and wireless, MP3 upscale to improve music quality on MP3 tracks, great video recording (up to 4K on mine), support app built in, fast stock launcher will little bloat. I'm even a fan of the dedication Google Assistant button and use it all the time.

And the price was great because I got it on sale for just €350.

That's how Android should be: options, choice, value for money

Edit: I forgot to mention that Sony allows unlocking the bootloader if you want to install other ROM's like Sailfish, Lineage etc

[–] MargotRobbie 5 points 1 year ago (5 children)

We'll do Sony some other time. Promise.

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[–] Nullpwn 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I'm using OP6 and for 2023 it's rocking like a brand new phone. Everything works exactly as I want and I rooted and installed AOSP 13 so I'm pretty much up to date, about the new ones I'm not quite sure what to say; far as I heard the new OnePlus is Nothing Phone

[–] mudmaniac 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Got an OP6 back in 2019 and definitely has that new phone energy. Sadly I suffer from LinusDropItis and so my phone has developed a cracked corner that is now essentially a crack in the corner of my heart. Thinking about 11, but would rather stick with OP6 until the battery or screen goes. This warrior has lasted me longer than my last 3 phones combined. Carl Pei was 1/2 of the Oneplus founder's team together with Pete Lau. He left Oneplus/OPPO in 2020 and announced Nothing Phone in 2021. I just had my hands on a Nothing (1) a couple days back, and I really wanna like it, but the lights just seem too strange for me.

[–] Nullpwn 3 points 1 year ago

Honestly same, Nothing Phone looks amazing in photos but irl? I don't know men, I don't like alien lights at 3 am from Twitter but in the spectrum of new design, improvements and specifications per-total it's something new

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I appreciate they have unlocked bootloaders. Now that I'm comfortable upgrading my old phones with the latest Android and security updates I'll never buy another phone that doesn't let me unlock the bootloader like Samsung. It's why I replaced my Note.

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[–] RagingPixels 5 points 1 year ago

I have owned the OnePlus 2 and 6 and was very happy with them. Value/performance was pretty good and I never had any problems. Their recent direction made me go back to Samsung though and getting an a52

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I had a 6T and really liked it. Got an 8 Pro about the day they disabled the Photochrom filter. That really disappointed me, not because it had "X-ray" capability, but because it was an IR sensor and I was excited to see a world I couldn't see with my visible light spectrum eyes. OS updates seemed to degrade things. I hope their foldable serves them well, but I'm not even considering it since I don't think they could make a good multitasking OS. We'll see when they announce it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I got a OnePlus Nord. I think they are pushing too many phones. They do like Xiaomi, they announce a phone, it doesn't even have time to arrive in the stores that a new one is already announced. This is confusing as they need to resort to ridiculous naming like "OnePlus Nord 2 ce lite se 5g". Stores can't hold 100 identical phones that are differing only in the name. The store where i bought my Nord, dropped OnePlus entirely because "we already carry Oppo, vivo, realme, it's the same brand"

And this reflects also in the updates. They can't possibly continue to send updates with this many phones.

I like to get a phone that gets at least 3 years of updates, but in total for the bbk group it means supporting and testing 400 phone models at the same time? They have thousands of employees but they're not enough , what happens is that software development is basically dropped as soon the new model comes out

Why can't they do like Apple??? Just three phones per year. Easier to market, easier to support...

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The Oneplus 7 series was the last one that seemed good. Newer models have worse cameras somehow too.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

After having a Samsung Galaxy S since the beginning every one got worse until I switched from the S7 to a oneplus 7 pro.

This is been, hands down, the best phone I've ever owned. So far it has also lasted longer than any phone.

I'm disheartened to hear that I don't have new ones to look forward to when it comes time to replace this one.

I suppose I'll just go with the pixel # pro whenever it comes time. My wife and daughter like theirs.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I am only slightly better than a "casual" user in terms of Android phones. The most I've done is flash LineageOS on my phone. I think smartphones have reached the pinnacle for users like me. Like TVs I'm really wondering where smartphones could possibly go from here. As long as all the apps work and the battery can last a full working day I don't think I'll be replacing my 8T any time soon.

If there's one thing I'd be looking for it would be Android's answer to iMessage. But that ball is in Google's court. Ideally it would be an open protocol, preferably they would just adopt something that already exists, like Matrix Chat.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I just moved away from my 7T onto a Pixel 7. I love my 7T. It was definitely my favorite phone. But it seems like things have changed lately and the newer OnePlus phones aren't what they used to be. I still use my 7T as a game and media player for when I'm chilling in bed.

[–] soapyScooper 4 points 1 year ago

Fully agree. I still have my 7T Pro, and I'm not looking forward to upgrading it when I have to! I loved when it was a simple upgrade on base android, but with the newer versions, it has veered away from that. I'm disappointed with the updates - I haven't done the latest update as lots of people are complaining that it's very buggy, and it doesn't look like they are going to update it again.

I don't think I'd go for a OnePlus again - I'd probably go with something more stock, with hopefully more reliable updates, like a Pixel.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My friend recommended the brand saying he never had a problem with it and it was as fast as the day he got it. My wife got one because her Pixel 3 died (apparently a relatively common thing for that model). Then after my wife got one my friend started complaining about his phone and my wife didn't like her new phone. Then he got a pixel lol. Then I got one. It's a nice phone. The Pixel 3 was my wife's favorite before it died. So 2 years later we ditched the one plus for a new Pixel for her.

It seems like one plus used to be a good brand and maybe my friend had some loyalty still or his phone coincidentally started to slow down right after he recommended it lol

[–] ozymandias117 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

OnePlus got purchased by Oppo, and it hasn't been as special since

The founder left and made "Nothing" phones after Oppo's takeover

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you have a problem that they're "just Oppo" now? I bought an Oppo phone on a bit of a whim when my last phone died and I'm a bit of a convert. The software is great - clean, unobtrusive and full of useful features, the weird features can be disabled. I even switched from Nova back to the default Oppo launcher and it's fine, certainly not as configurable and I don't like how the inbuilt search recommends store apps, but it's perfectly cromulent.

Given my experience with Oppo I'd have no qualms about choosing Oppo or OnePlus as my next phone. RealMe, BBK's other brand, I'd need to research first as their value proposition seems even more insane than Oppo...

[–] MargotRobbie 6 points 1 year ago

I don't have a problem with them being Oppo, Oppo makes good products. (BTW, I'm still mad Oppo NA shut down so there's nowhere to get a new HA-2SE or PM-1 now) What I have a problem with is that 1+ was trying so hard to pretend to NOT be Oppo at first.

[–] MutatedBass 3 points 1 year ago

I've had my OP8 5g UW since release. Flashed LineageOS for Microg as soon as the bootloader got cracked. Pretty happy with it and will keep it a few more years most likely. The only issue is Verizon abandoned it on Android 11, but that's Verizon's fault.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Great thread. I'm currently on a OP8 and it's done me alright, but my screen broke a few months ago so I'm gonna hijack this thread to ask for The Best Phone on the market under 1k right now. Ideally cheap (and rootable).

[–] MrGrivixer 3 points 1 year ago

I had a OnePlus 6T and a OnePlus 8T.

OnePlus 6T: had it for 1.5 years and sold it because it had some weird bugs (can't remember exactly which).

OnePlus 8T: had it for almost 2 years. Updated to Android 12, was shit after few weeks. Factory reset to 11, used that a long time. Updated to 12 for a a few days and then to Android 13. Was alright but again a few bugs. Factory reset it again a few (staying on Android 13). Later Factory reset it to Android 11.

I have factory reset it 5 times in 1 the last year i had the OnePlus 8T.

And despite the many factory resets, every few days had a bug where it became so slow it wasn't useable anymore and had to reboot.

Short story: OnePlus had a lot of potential and I bought a OnePlus 6T for the price and the good software support they had in 2018. I feel a little betrayed because they became so worse over the few years I had my OnePlus phones.

I now have a Samsung S23 Ultra which has good software support and yes it has some bloat. But i don't have stupid bugs and the phone stays fast.

[–] ki77erb 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I used to be a big fan of OP, but when updates started getting months behind and when they arrived they were buggy as hell and my phone became more and more unusable, I switched to a Pixel 7.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I would prefer Pixel or Motorola

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Man I loved the sandstone back on the OnePlus One. That was the only phone I'd ever used without a case for the entire time I had it. I also had a 3T and my dad currently has a 7. The 3T's camera stopped focusing after a couple of years and I had to replace the USB port on the One.

I haven't really kept up with phones that much recently (my Note 9's going strong still after a battery replacement, lol) so I don't really know much about OnePlus' current offerings.

[–] d3ceived 3 points 1 year ago

My OnePlus 6 is just short of 4 full years of use, with LineageOS of course. It's been great and I'd keep it for another few years if I were able to buy a new, genuine replacement battery; all the vendors I see offering one are dubious. The OP6 has excellent hardware for the price I paid for it back in 2019, excellent software thanks to LineageOS support, all while having Dual SIM/microSD (shared slot, used for second SIM by me) and a headphone jack. Earlier, my daily driver was a OnePlus X which I was also happy with for the same reasons. Now that 4 years of battery wear are pushing me towards replacement, I will jump ship only because newer OnePlus phones have impractical display aspect ratios, way too long and narrow for my needs; I consider a phone's display to be as good as the largest 16:9 rectangle that can fit into it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I had a OnePlus One, and a 5, and I'm currently rocking a 9Pro. Fantastic phone, great photos, I don't mind OxygenOS. The only problem I have is because it's not supported by carriers in Canada (had no problems in the US), VoWIFI can be flaky which sucks.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I had a OnePlus 3t. The power button stopped working in the end, but it lasted a good five years and was fast enough, even at the end. The camera was awful from the beginning though. Like you say tough, the prices now are nothing special.

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