OnePlus has launched plenty of telephones with attention-grabbing designs and distinctive options during the last eight years. The alert slider continues to be an enormous {hardware} differentiator for the corporate, and a few of my favourite designs have been Oneplus telephones: the OnePlus 6T in Thunder Purple, the OnePlus 5T Star Wars Version, and the OnePlus 7 Professional.

OnePlus’ deal with design aesthetics comes from the very high. Co-founder and CEO Pete Lau typically talks about how design is a key space of focus for OnePlus, and I bear in mind one dialog forward of the OnePlus 6 launch distinctly. 

On the time, OnePlus was launching its first telephone in a crimson shade, and Lau stated that he and the design crew deliberated over the alternatives for a number of weeks to get the best hue for the machine.

In the end, OnePlus went with a crimson hue that was $4 costlier than different alternate options (no small change while you’re engaged on razor-thin margins), however the outcome was that the Crimson OnePlus 6 seemed completely beautiful. It is this consideration to element over each side of the machine that endeared energy customers to the corporate. However sadly, OnePlus is not doing that any longer.

In 2022, you possibly can sum up OnePlus’s telephone portfolio in a single phrase: by-product. As a substitute of launching unique designs that stand out from the pack, OnePlus is actually rebranding present Oppo and Realme gadgets.

This is not the primary time OnePlus has gone to OPPO for design inspiration. The 2017 OnePlus 5 was almost an identical to the OPPO R11, and OnePlus has at all times relied on OPPO to fabricate and distribute its telephones.

However on the time, the {hardware} similarities did not matter as a lot as a result of OPPO did not have a big world presence outdoors just a few Asian markets. Moreover, OnePlus’s efforts with OxygenOS meant that the software program on each telephones was very completely different.

This is not the case in 2022. OnePlus telephones have the identical software program as their OPPO siblings, they usually now share the identical designs with none significant tweaks. That is significantly true for the Nord N sequence — the Nord N20 5G that launched just a few weeks in the past is nothing however a rebadged OPPO Reno 8 Lite. 

Equally, the Nord CE 2 Lite is a Realme 9 Professional knockoff with a wide-angle lens that is not nearly as good, and the Nord CE 2 is a Reno 7 by-product.

The worst offender is the OnePlus 10R; this machine is a poor imitation of the Realme GT Neo 3, and it has the ugliest design of any telephone I’ve used this yr. I can’t consider that the identical firm that gave us the OnePlus 7T simply three years in the past got here out with this monstrosity.

{Hardware} is only one a part of the story right here; OnePlus bumped into vital points integrating ColorOS with OxygenOS, and these are clearly evident on the 10R. The machine is susceptible to lag and buggy in a method that the Realme GT Neo 3 simply is not — despite the fact that they’re each basically the identical telephone.

What’s clear is that OnePlus does not have wherever near the identical degree of management over its portfolio beneath OPPO’s tutelage. The best way I see it, OnePlus now exists as a method for BBK to promote telephones in North America. 

OPPO and Realme do not promote gadgets within the area, so it stands to purpose that BBK is rebranding present gadgets from these two entities and releasing them beneath the OnePlus label.

As to why that is the case now and never three years in the past, it has to do with numbers. Realme simply turned 4 this week, and the model already has over 100 million gross sales to its identify. OnePlus, in the meantime, is twice as outdated and hasn’t offered even half as many items. To be truthful, a lot of the gadgets that Realme offered have been within the price range class whereas OnePlus centered its consideration on high-end telephones, and that is an enormous contributor as to why the producer hasn’t posted sturdy gross sales figures in its eight-year historical past.

That is additionally why we’re seeing plenty of impetus across the price range and mid-tier Nord sequence and never as a lot deal with the flagship OnePlus 10 sequence this yr. OnePlus revealed for the primary time final yr that it offered 10 million telephones, and a majority of these gross sales have been within the Nord and Nord N sequence. 

So should you’re in North America and want a price range telephone, OnePlus continues to be choice as a result of there is not any OPPO, Realme, or Xiaomi within the area. However should you’re in a market the place OPPO and Realme promote telephones formally, you are higher off shopping for from them instantly. 

OnePlus’s derivatives value rather less than their BBK siblings, however that is not well worth the problem of coping with buggy software program and lackluster designs. OnePlus used to make a few of the greatest Android telephones, however that is not the case in 2022.