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OnePlus’ latest phone is facing backlash over misleading marketing claims

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TL;DR OnePlus is facing criticism for misleading promotional materials regarding the lower 4GB RAM variant of the newly launched OnePlus N6.

The 4GB model lacks the 60-month fluency guarantee and 60fps video recording supported by the 6GB variant, yet active buy pages on Amazon India and the official OnePlus site advertise these features for both models without adequate footnotes.

Despite users and YouTubers pointing out these errors for two weeks since launch, the listings remain unchanged, effectively misleading users.

OnePlus appears to be in fresh soup once again. The company recently launched the OnePlus N6 budget smartphone, and while we noted the hardware limitations between the two memory and storage variants of the phone in our coverage, the brand is being called out for running promotional and marketing materials that are misleading users by promising longer fluency and 60fps video recording features on the lower 4GB variant that explicitly doesn’t support either.

X has been abuzz since the launch of the OnePlus N6, with many users pointing out that OnePlus’s advertised claims of “60-month fluency” guarantee and “smooth 60fps video recording” on its pre-launch teasers were missing footnotes to clarify that the features only applied to the higher 6GB RAM variant and not the lower 4GB RAM variant.

While still wrong and deceptive, there’s room to cut the company some slack, as adequate clarifications could be presented at launch to clear the air. OnePlus did put out disclaimers and clarifications, but only in some places, namely the OnePlus N6 landing page on the OnePlus India website.

As you can see in the disclaimers, point 6 states that the 60-month “smooth experience” claim applies to the 6GB variant of the OnePlus N6, whereas the 4GB variant of the OnePlus N6 promises a shorter 48-month “smooth experience” window. Further, point 16 states that 60fps video recording is only available on the higher-RAM variant, implying that the lower-RAM variant drops to 30fps.

These disclaimers are good and not an issue by themselves. However, the story falls apart when you look at the rest of the OnePlus N6 product listing, as Beebom points out. If you check out the “Buy now” purchase listing for the 4GB OnePlus N6, it freely claims a 60-month “smooth experience” and 60fps video recording with no disclaimer asterisks or numbered footnote references in place:

It gets worse with the Amazon India product listing pages, which advertise “60-month smoothness” right in the listing title for both variants:

Scrolling down the listing for the 4GB OnePlus N6, there is a footnote reference. However, there’s no accompanying footnote, so it appears that the marketing material is carelessly copied and pasted from elsewhere.

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