Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Is OnePlus turning into Oppo?”.
Oneplus has built its name and fan base on catering to the tech enthusiast market, but in 2020 we’ve seen a radical shift in the company’s strategy and more and more we’re seeing one oneplus morph into oppo. Let’S talk about that for the uninitiated, oneplus and oppo are both owned by bbk, electronics and oneplus is a subsidiary of oppo. What differentiates oppo and oneplus our brand identity and brand image. Oppo is a premium smartphone manufacturer, producing everything from budget to ultra high-end flagship devices, mainly for china, but also for europe. Oneplus is a younger brand that appears to aim its few phones and enthusiasts with lots of speed and clean software. Oneplus has a lot more clout in the us, uk and india, but isn’t as popular as oppo in china. Up until this year, oneplus had only really produced phones, with enthusiasts in mind.
Its devices had unique designs and delivered great performance thanks to the top of the line specs. This helped oneplus devices stand out from the rest of the market. The oneplus 8t is a complete design, switch that looks like every other, mid-range and high-end smartphone from 2020 and, while absolutely not slow by any means doesn’t have the best of the best specs. In our review. We called it flying too close to the nord and in a lot of ways it felt like a step down from the eight, even if on paper it was technically better and we can go deeper into that. Let’S look at the oneplus 2 and oneplus 3 era.
The devices were a lot cheaper with a lot more of a focus on pure speed. However, since then, oneplus devices have steadily become more well-rounded, with better displays, better batteries and better designs which pushes these devices rather close to oppo’s ultra premium flagships. The perfect example of this is the oneplus 8 pro and opposed find x2 pro, which were very similar if priced very differently. The oneplus nord series looks to simply sell more oppo phones, but with oneplus branding since oneplus reputation is pretty great among people in the west. Here’S the nord n100 that we recently reviewed and here’s the oppo a53 they’re practically identical on paper and in design, and while some might call that lazy, it’s really just bbk utilizing its western focus brand to sell phones that it already makes for china. Oneplus also heavily changed its software oxygen. Os 11 was incredibly controversial across the tech community because, prior to the change oxygen, os was a clean, mostly stock, skin, with some subtle but useful changes. The new skin looks a lot more like color os, which is a lot further from the stock.
Aesthetic and a lot further from stock than many oneplus fans would like. Oneplus has also gained a reputation over the years for delivering fantastic software support long after the devices lifespan, the oneplus 5, a phone that launched with android 7 is upgradable to android 10. Officially and that’s fantastic, but the nord n10 and 100 will only get one platform upgrade just one. That’S not very one, plus at all.
What’S more telling is that carl pay co-founder of oneplus has moved on to do other things, leaving the company to do well. Whatever is happening right now, pete lau, on the other hand, founder and ceo of oneplus, has taken senior leadership in opus, a company that specifically oversees oneplus and oppo, while still not completely clear. These two moves still at least give context to the overall situation. As oneplus becomes more and more like oppo, it seems like it will become less and less aimed towards smartphone and tech enthusiasts.
What this also means is that we’re likely to see the company fill out the rest of its lineup with oppo derived devices. What do you think of the whole oppo morphing into oneplus thing? Do you think that’s a a good idea, a bad idea? What are your thoughts on the switch from enthusiast marketing to just general phone sales? Let us know in the comments and whilst you’re down there hit like and subscribe to never miss a video like this one. I’Ve been ryan thomas with android authority and i’ll catch. You later .