OnePlus 5

[Saad]

I’m a big time OnePlus fan. I own a OnePlus One from back when it first launched and I’ve been a firm believer in the company and what it is capable of doing. I just recently bought a OnePlus 3T for my little brother and that is an excellent phone as well. On par with most flagships that it competes with. That being said, OnePlus’s upper-edge was always in the performance to price ratio. It seems according to the new rumors that the OP5 will be significantly higher priced…we’re talking big time flagship phone money like 600+ dollars. With the new reveals and stuff it seems like it might just fail…I hate to say it but if it’s not under 500 dollars it will more than likely be a flop.

(images from: http://www.androidauthority.com/will-oneplus-5-design-stop-buyers-778734/ )

Also with how it looks just like the Oppo R11 (which in return looks like an iPhone 7) which is the parent company of OnePlus …things just aren’t looking too good…especially considering an Oppo R11 is just a mid-level device, and to have almost the exact same design on a “flagship killer” is not very inspiring at all.

I think $450 or it’s a bust. I don’t know what OnePlus was trying to do with the design especially, what a disappointment…finally when companies are upping their design game (S8, G6, etc.), we get an iPhone clone. Pretty sad.

I’ll be one of the first to buy it if the price is right, but if it’s anywhere close to 600 bucks, you’ll probably see me with an S8 or something else…because even the expensive Essential phone would seem more unique at that point. They all have almost identical specs besides RAM so I don’t even see a reason why anyone would even consider a OnePlus device at such a high price point.

Sorry, OnePlus, but you might just lose me on this one…just might.

[professor]

I agree.

I have been also a supportive fan, I wanted them to succeed, to cause positive disruptive change.

I owned OPO, OP2, OPX, OP3T.

The trend to more expensive each variant concerned me, sufficient one reason I bought the OP3T was because I thought it would be my last Oneplus.

If they do increase prices again then I won’t buy, but they’ll then just cause someone else to fill the gap their past proved. If they can’t shift stock due to price then they’ll drop prices, but the Appletards prove you can sell at any price once you get enough hype.

There’s wants and needs. I want a high spec low price, but I also have 5 year old phones I opened up and repaired, custom ROM, custom kernels, minimalist app usage. When I want to move fast and light I use a Moto G4 Play I got for $99 with a fast $20 64GB SD and a spare GK40 $11 battery.

Also one hand washed the other. I can create as many accounts and IP addresses I care to bother, and I made enough $ getting and selling OnePlusOne invites to pay for all my OnePlus buys. So it can be an equal relationship.

[Saad]

Haha I remember the good ol invite days. I got two invites and bought two OPOs, sold one for a large markup so my OPO only cost me 250 at the time.

Honestly I want OnePlus to do well as a company. But they seem to be straying from their roots.

[professor]

I am familiar with what I expect is the OnePlus brand method and business model.

If you spend $300 making a product to the customer hand, and sell it for $301, you make $1 unit profit. Sell 50 million units, you made $50M business profit. If you have brand loyalty and sell it for $600 to a little less say 40 million, you made $1.2B profit. It’s when you don’t have brand loyalty it fails.

[professor]

OnePlus 5 is coming: Here's everything we know

Starting at $449 (roughly £350 or AU$600)

OnePlus3/T was $439
OnePlus2 was $389
OnePlusOne was $349

[Saad]

If the 449 rumor is true, then OnePlus will probably find the same success as it did with the OP3/T. But with the way it seems right now, it isn’t really that impressive of a phone. 2017 we saw some pretty cool phones and we will see more (iPhone 8 on the horizon, etc.). OnePlus really should have done more with the design, really the biggest bummer for me so far.

Also OnePlus should not be compared with big companies like Samsung and Apple in their pricing. Xiaomi is a much larger company and is also Chinese so it better compares with OnePlus, yet it continues to pump out far more innovative products (Mi Mix) with drastically low price points. It’s just not available in the US so they don’t have the visibility that OnePlus does. Their Mi 6 phone is pretty much on par with all flagships yet it demands a modest 399 for a regular version and 435 for the ceramic version. So if OnePlus is shooting for a high price tag, no one will buy it.

[professor]

So if OnePlus is shooting for a high price tag, no one will buy it.

Hmmm, not sure I would agree that “no one” will buy it, I would say, the quantity will be reduced.

In my specific individual case, once I had “sussed” the secret agenda of OnePlus, once the OP3T came out, I concluded I would buy it and probably be my last OP. In fact the feeling OP5 would be expensive, drove me to decide to buy the OP3T. With half an eye on resale value, I waited for (their manipulating hype) for the rose gold color in 64MB and got it in January. That plus my OP2 was beginning to show battery issues (post warranty).

So my irony would be if OP5 is not silly-priced, I’d be somewhat annoyed, as I could have stretched my OP2 6 months longer.

I am currently using 4 SIMs across 2 phones and a smartwatch. My OP3T most of the time has a USA T-Mobile and UK Giffgaff SIM in, so I can receive texts from both USA and UK. I keep a Moto G4 Play with USA ATT SIM in, and I keep a LG Urbane 2 with a ATT MVNO (Truphone) SIM in. Most days when I’m home I use the OP3T (T-Mobile), and when I head onto a bike I use the Moto G4P (ATT). When I do USA travel I move SIMs around and go with the OP3T with ATT and T-Mobile SIMs (and the ATT MVNO in the watch). When I visit UK I use the OP3T with the USA T-Mobile and UK Giffgaff SIM in for reasons most in USA won’t understand. The UK Giffgaff is a MVNO of a large UK provider from O2 and so I pay about $6 for 1 month of local free incoming calls (for local UK stuff) and I use T-Mobile’s free international roaming for all my data.

Dual sim phones are cool. No-one knows where I am really and its all very cheap.

Final comment (I hope): what OnePlus did was prove (to anyone watching)

• you can startup a no-brand business which is cost-neutral
• you can survive quality and support issues
• you can make a decent phone which many will buy

If OnePlus then move onto other things - that proof of their business model - will be used by someone else (who I can then buy from). The idea survives, my loyalty to OnePlus is dropped. I expect though we’d add “OnePlustards” to the “Appletards” who just have their opinion decided for them by brand then retrofit a justification ontop. I’m far from certain they are even aware they are doing it.

But the reason we both invested in OnePlus did its time - we got the handsets - we proved the market (we sort of were cost neutral so it cost us nothing) - and we move onto whoever has that same idea.

[professor]

https://oneplus.net/uk/launch?utm_source=oosnotification-euna&utm_medium=oos&utm_campaign=notification

About to be launched. The price is really the biggest concern.

If it’s $400 I might just buy it, but fear is it’s $600 so I’ll wait til the OnePlus3T in my hand breaks/dies.

[professor]

Yet another price increase I see but not as bad as we feared.

[Insider]

At less than $250 more expensive, I’d opt for an LG G6… or even an iPhone 7. Although now, I’d wait for the Edition / Pro / 8.

I have a feeling that OP is going to lower the price back to $400ish with the next version as this one probably won’t sell quite as well. That being said, there is A LOT of marketing going on here. More video reviews on YouTube than any of the previous OP phones (early access), so maybe it’ll hit consumers more. We’ll see…

[professor]

nah I think once you built a brand you can sell at whatever price you like, its only really those who are free thinkers who only see specs for a price will be affected by the creeping price creek.

I saw the fact it is a smaller battery and see the compromises. Really, this obsession with phone thinness bears no relevance whatsoever with a dominant problem most have which is battery life. They improved on it in the OP3 to OP3T change but then lost that plot in the battle for subjective aethetics.

“oh my phone is flat but its so pretty, I’ll just sit here and look at it.”

[cdarienzo1]

I personally have never seen a person own one of these phones and have never seen one in a store. where do you buy them? I live an hour from NYC and have never seen one there either. What is special about it and why does it look like and iphone 7?

[Insider]

Exactly. That’s why I don’t they’ve built a brand that can sell at whatever price they like.

[professor]

So the benefit of OnePlus is eroding downwards with the OnePlus5. Their first phone OnePlusOne was $350 for the 64GB model but then its creeped up each iteration and now $439 minimum. Their first phone had very good battery life, they then fell back and then improved it in the previous OnePlus3T.

The primary selling point is specifications as relates to performance for a price. So as they increase their price that primary point is eroding. So they have to compensate with hype and distractions and talk about “curves”.

You buy it are oneplus.net , it ships usually direct from China.

You probably have seen one but as phones all look so similar you probably thought it something else.

[Saad]

I’m pretty disappointed to be honest. I’ll hang on to my OnePlus One until I really need a new phone. The S8+ can be had BOGO so basically like 450 per phone on T-Mobile. I ordered that right after the OnePlus 5 price was revealed but cancelled later on seeing I really didn’t need a new phone. I can do 2017 without a new phone but if the OnePlus 5 truly was a great phone with a nice price under 500 for the 128GB/8GB RAM version, I’d probably have gotten it. But seeing I can get a Samsung Galaxy S8+ with waterproofing, expandable storage, gimmicks like Iris scanner, etc, and higher resolution Infinity Display, just as good of a camera…all for less than a OnePlus 5 after discounts. What do you think I will get?

The OnePlus One from 3 years ago has a 5.5 inch 1080p screen, 64GB storage, 3GB RAM. The upgrades are too incremental and small for me to spend so much on a OnePlus 5. If you were giving me a 2K edge to edge display, a body that isn’t borrowed from a cheap OPPO R11, and a camera that is actually better (initial reviews are not impressed with the camera), i’d probably order one.

consider me a pissed off oneplus fanboy. i’ll wait for the Note 8, iPhone 8, and probably even the S9 and OnePlus 6…as long as my OPO lasts.

[Insider]

What do you think about the 5T?

[professor]

<rant-mode=on>

To me they made it worse.

I don’t like 5.5" phones, prefer 5" but they are all too compromised so forced reluctantly into 5.5". They made the 5 even bigger than 3T I have and made the 5T even bigger than the 5 so its all getting worse every step. They then made the screen bigger but not the battery bigger so predicting worsening battery life to drive more pixels.

Geeks may like bigger phones but I do things like ride a bike and walk with a cup of tea in my hand (as known as having a life) and for me I need 1 handed operation.

I already make use of Android Wear so I can keep the phone in a pocket and glance at my wrist to pick up the phone least, and make heavy use of Anker buds (Life when at home, Slim+ when moving) but a phone which needs two hands to operate, well, I might as well use a tablet and then not have as small as 5.5" might as well have 7"-8". 5" is the sweetspot for phones.

(source)

So many phone designers lost the plot, its a phone.

I just this week got for $270 a 8" tablet with stereo front facing speakers, 4GB RAM, 64GB storage, a SD slot (I put 128GB I got for $20) and if I am to bind up two hands then 8" can do that better than 5.5" which needs 2 hands. 1 handed operation needs 5".

<rant-mode=off>

[Insider]

So 0.14” taller and 0.01” wider turns you away?

[professor]

No its 3.4mm wider of a phone already too wide.

I had a Oneplus 2 which was wider than the OneplusOne and I moved to the Oneplus3T (3 and 3T same physical size, 3T had bigger battery).

(source)

(source)

Lost the plot phone designer. It’s a phone. You hold it in one hand. If it is 2 hands then might as well get a tablet.

My other phone is a Moto G4 Play for $99 with removable battery and SD slot, what it suffers from is RAM, CPU, LTE bands, which impacts performance. There is a gap in the market.

[Insider]

iPhone X is smaller than all