OnePlus is one of the saddest stories out there. It was the hacker's choice for a while. It was originally the "Never Settle" phone that ran mostly stock android, had specs maxxed out, price was great, and bootloader was unlocked plus they provided factory images. Those were all reasons I bought a lot of OnePlus phones in the early years.

Then they flushed nearly all of it down the toilet. The day they stopped posting factory images was the day I saw the writing on the wall. Such a shame.

> had specs maxxed out

Indeed, their 10 year old flagship has 6GB of RAM.

https://www.gsmarena.com/oneplus_3-7995.php

(for comparison, last year's iPhone 17 has just 8GB or RAM, 9 years later)

"Hacker's choice" phones don't appear to sell enough to justify the costs, although they can be a decent strategy for building the initial brand awareness.

Financially speaking, OPPO was right to gut OnePlus all those years ago and streamline their production into selling the same models (with minor tweaks) under the brands that are more known in this or that region. Saves on hardware and software development costs a lot, and once OnePlus was a household brand among the general public it no longer had to appeal to the hacker crowd anyway.

Sad as it is. I bought the One when they were still invite-only and mained it for years, amazing device for the time. Went a bit full circle and using a Nord 3 right now, but I didn't get it because of the brand (just needed a basic secondary smartphone for traveling and got a good deal on it, it's clearly just a generic OPPO brick).

> Then they flushed nearly all of it down the toilet. The day they stopped posting factory images was the day I saw the writing on the wall.

For me, it was when the killed the headphone jack with the OnePlus 6T. Around the time OP6 was released, the then CEO Carl Pei posted a poll around the headphone jack - a overwhelming majority of users said they used/wanted the jack - something like 80%+). Then they go ahead and release the 6T (and subsequent models) with no jack. At this point most of the OG fans (including myself) felt incredibly betrayed and vowed to never buy another OnePlus again. And soon, Carl Pei himself left the company and it's been downhill ever since.

The OP6 was their last good phone which actually lived up to their "flagship killer" premise without compromising on features.

I still remember the wait lists for OP1, 2 and 3. OnePlusX was the sexiest looking phone anyone ever released, before and since.

Really a shame. I had a original 1 (flagship killer) a 3t, a 6t, a 7t a 9 something..I now own a nothing phone.

I know HN doesn't like vids for obvious reasons but Marques summed it pretty well IMO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZdbbN3FCzE

OnePlus starting out: "We’re going to build the ultimate, cheap, bloatware-free phone directly for tech nerds by cutting out carriers, ads, and useless features."

OnePlus scaling up: "Nerds don't buy enough phones to keep us alive, and they'll leave the second someone else is $10 cheaper. We have to sell to normal people."

OnePlus today: To survive, they had to raise prices, buy ads, partner with carriers, and merge with a generic parent company.

Their move to ColorOS away from the fully customized stock Android experience with OxygenOS was the nail in the coffin for me.

The overall experience turned terrible, and so many aspects of the OS were changed or worsened for all the wrong reasons. Everything from pulling the notification drawer and managing notifications, to the castrated home screen functionality, was such a disappointment.

This is exactly it. Every competitive advantage they had against larger brands was removed.