Carl Pei is leaving OnePlus

[Tig Bitties]

Carl Pei confirms his departure from OnePlus

Pei says he's "looking forward to taking some time off"

www.androidpolice.com

Carl Pei was one of the founders of OnePlus, alongside Pete Lau, and helped turn the company from a little-known "startup" (read: division of OPPO) into one of the most popular Android smartphone brands worldwide. However, Pei has seemingly now left his role at the company after nearly seven years.

Sources say Pei has left
Android Central is reporting from two sources that Pei left the company "in recent weeks" though OnePlus still has yet to make official statements to any specific publication or in its own media.


New venture
TechCrunch now reports that Carl Pei is leaving OnePlus to start "his own venture," citing a source familiar with the matter. No further details are known at this time, and OnePlus has still not made any official announcements about Pei's departure.

 

[Tig Bitties]

Personally I think OnePlus has strayed way too far away from their original idea. They were the flagship killer selling smartphones for half the price of current flagships from the big names, and ran a stock like Android OS and UI, with some nice additional extra tweaks and options over vanilla.

Now, WTF they are charging $900+ for their OnePlus 8 Pro
They use that sh!tty curved edge display garbage that Samsung puts on their Galaxy line. Go back to a flat screen like the iPhone 12 Pro
Their stock vanilla like OS has changed a lot lately, away from AOSP stock type, and more like Samsung's One UI.
And they used to put pretty big batteries inside their phones, much large than the competition for the year, but now a days they just put standard sized batteries, if they kept up what they were doing, the OnePlus 8 Pro should have a 5,000mAh battery minimum.
Updates? Not the best track record, for phones that really aren't that old, OnePlus is getting a bad rap for not keeping phones that are only a couple years old on the current latest Android and monthly security update.
Camera? Have they ever put out a great camera? I mean its good, not great #1.

 

[ian87w]

Imo OnePlus has met its "actual" goal, which is to penetrate western markets for BBK. The premium pricing doesn't matter much in these markets as majority of the users are financing their phones in one way or another.

Downside is that OnePlus is no longer interesting, at least for me. I mean it's easy to pile in stuff when you're charging $800-$1000. It's more interesting seeing what a company can do when they are given a restricted price point. Thus I'm more interested in BBK's other venture, Realme, which are focusing on $100-$400 segment.

 

[Tig Bitties]

Imo OnePlus has met its "actual" goal, which is to penetrate western markets for BBK. The premium pricing doesn't matter much in these markets as majority of the users are financing their phones in one way or another.

Downside is that OnePlus is no longer interesting, at least for me. I mean it's easy to pile in stuff when you're charging $800-$1000. It's more interesting seeing what a company can do when they are given a restricted price point. Thus I'm more interested in BBK's other venture, Realme, which are focusing on $100-$400 segment.

Great reply, excellent points.

So who's the next OnePlus making great budget priced smartphones running stock Android?

 

[ian87w]

Great reply, excellent points.

So who's the next OnePlus making great budget priced smartphones running stock Android?

In the US, that's where the Pixel a lineup is. And there's also Motorola.

OnePlus also has not completely abandoned that segment just yet. They have OnePlus Nord, although not being made available in the US.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

In the US, that's where the Pixel a lineup is. And there's also Motorola.

OnePlus also has not completely abandoned that segment just yet. They have OnePlus Nord, although not being made available in the US.

According to Android Police the Nord is definitely headed to the US. Motorola’s big disadvantage is spotty updates.

Thus I'm more interested in BBK's other venture, Realme, which are focusing on $100-$400 segment.

That was Huawei’s bread and butter before they got banned in the US.

 

[ian87w]

According to Android Police the Nord is definitely headed to the US. Motorola’s big disadvantage is spotty updates.

But clearly that segment is no longer OnePlus' priority for the US, as they probably figured out that most people are financing their phones anyway through carriers.

 

[ian87w]

That was Huawei’s bread and butter before they got banned in the US.

Motorola seems to be doing fine. Besides, realme brand is not available in the US. It's a direct jab at Xiaomi's Redmi line in emerging markets.

To avoid derailing this thread, BBK seems to have a lot of things going on. Their Vivo brand is now pushing new techs that nobody else is doing (eg. gymbal equipped camera). Maybe Pei will be doing other projects as OnePlus seems to be doing alright.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

Motorola seems to be doing fine.

They now seem to offer phones in every category but if I had to choose I would go with a smartphone maker who offers "X" amount of promised OS updates. So Motorola would be out for me.

 

[Aneres11]

OnePlus are strange.
Ive only ever owned one One Plus device and it was ok, but I wasn't a big fan of Android back then so quickly returned to iPhone. It was around 5-6 years ago now though and a lot has changed since then with Android.

I just don't feel like they have ever gotten a device "right". I've never wanted to buy one. I was tempted by the Nord as it offers a great spec sheet at a really affordable cost - which is the very thing they were always wanting to be known for.

But with them now making true flagships and selling at flagship prices, they need to get their cameras in order. It's always the weak point of their devices which is a shame.
They also have seemingly ruined Oxygen OS from what I keep seeing in Twitter. They've basically copied Samsung's UI (for better or worse depending on your preference for One UI) and moved away from that true stock experience with a sprinkling of helpful OnePlus additions.

Once I seen the new OS for Oxygen around the time I was tempted by Nord, that's what sealed the deal for me to not get one. Along with the camera being widely criticized outside of daylight shots.

 

[Tig Bitties]

Yeah, OnePlus doesn't seem to be what they were originally? For saying they're like stock vanilla Android today that's not necessarily true Oxygen OS has changed radically and not for the better in my opinion.

And updates they're pretty bad at updates on older phones I think they officially give you two years official updates but the newest phone will get the update right away last year's phone will get it a month or so later and a phone 2 years old will be a few months out from getting the update So they don't support older devices all that well.

if they're serious they need to do it just like Google Pixel or iPhone iOS you have a new big update to come out all the phones should get the same update that same week. Even a phone from two or three years ago that's not asking that much.

And yes cameras I don't see why they can't get that right I'll give them a pass on older phones they were very affordable cheap price so not having the best camera was acceptable but now that they're charging $900 flagship pricing they should have an amazing camera and it's okay not terrible but it certainly not up there with the best.

I'm not sure what path OnePlus is looking to go? Do they think they could become the second player in the Android world? Obviously Samsung's number one but are they trying to be behind them and ahead of Pixel and LG and Motorola and HTC?

 

[ian87w]

Yeah, OnePlus doesn't seem to be what they were originally? For saying they're like stock vanilla Android today that's not necessarily true Oxygen OS has changed radically and not for the better in my opinion.

And updates they're pretty bad at updates on older phones I think they officially give you two years official updates but the newest phone will get the update right away last year's phone will get it a month or so later and a phone 2 years old will be a few months out from getting the update So they don't support older devices all that well.

if they're serious they need to do it just like Google Pixel or iPhone iOS you have a new big update to come out all the phones should get the same update that same week. Even a phone from two or three years ago that's not asking that much.

And yes cameras I don't see why they can't get that right I'll give them a pass on older phones they were very affordable cheap price so not having the best camera was acceptable but now that they're charging $900 flagship pricing they should have an amazing camera and it's okay not terrible but it certainly not up there with the best.

I'm not sure what path OnePlus is looking to go? Do they think they could become the second player in the Android world? Obviously Samsung's number one but are they trying to be behind them and ahead of Pixel and LG and Motorola and HTC?

With Google leaving the flagship spot (no SD865 Pixel 5), it left a spot for OnePlus besides Samsung if you’re looking for Android phone with flagship chipset. And imo OnePlus probably is not looking to beat Samsung, they just need to be the alternative for people. OnePlus has been building a recognizable brand for the tech literates and youtubers.

As for updates, what do we expect? Samsung is the only OEM who made an official statement of 3 years of updates on select models (aside from Google). The other OEMs don’t have official statements on their update cycle. 2 years, even if late, is already not bad in Android world. And OnePlus is not bad, considering their sister brands like Oppo and Vivo are really bad with updates (even their mid range models don’t get a single Android version upgrades).

 

[Tig Bitties]

So what would you get, a discounted pried OnePlus 8 Pro for like $749, or the Pixel 5 for $700?

 

[ian87w]

So what would you get, a discounted pried OnePlus 8 Pro for like $749, or the Pixel 5 for $700?

Personally, I’d rather get the Galaxy S20 FE.

From those two, I’d probably choose the OnePlus. The only advantage Pixel has is the camera, but I’m not a photographer. The dual physical SIM slot on the OnePlus will be a lot more useful for me. And looks like the OP8 Pro uses UFS 3 storage, while the Pixel uses the slower UFS 2.1. And as for software, is not like Google is problem free. Pixels seem to have a not so great track of bugs.

 

[5105973]

I’ve tracked OnePlus since the beginning. I never threw any money their way because of the camera quality and update situation. Samsung just keeps improving so once my money has been sunk there it’s going to take a lot to break me away from Sammy. Plus the Samsung displays...with discounts and deals I can always own the most breathtaking display available each year for a reasonable amount. This year I kept it in the $400 range for my S20.

Then I have Pixels for Google’s Android and I haven’t really needed to even upgrade the hardware because the software updates have empowered the hardware beyond my expectations each year. (I wish iOS updates could/would do that for iPhones).

We have only one Huawei in the family. My husband has a P30 Pro if I remember correctly. I haven’t seen it in a year so I lost track. That phone was aspirational.

The camera was so far ahead of anything competition had to offer at the time. However it lacked consistency. It could produce incredible photos in terrible lighting. In regular lighting, it wasn’t all that special most of the time, but it was always at least competitive. My husband liked its UI well enough.

If the company weren’t so problematic and if that deal with AT&T could have gone through, I think Apple would be much more pressed to innovate than they currently are. Huawei was hungry back then and reaching for the stars. I don’t know what is going on with them now.

I think OnePlus could have been poised to put out a flagship that could have given Apple and Samsung a Huawei level of anxiety and competition. But they never pulled it together the way Huawei did a couple of years ago. I guess they don’t have the resources behind them to do that the way Huawei did. Still, it’s amazing how they baby-stepped their way into a very tricky business.

 

[Tig Bitties]

OnePlus is forcing the Amazon app on the OnePlus 8T (Update: OnePlus response)

OnePlus is now forcing the Amazon app on OnePlus 8T users in India through an OTA update. The company attributes it to a tie-up with Amazon.

www.androidauthority.com