GoKawiilJoe Maring / Android Authority
As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, OnePlus is ceasing all of its business operations in the US, Canada, and Europe. After over 12 years of being one of the most interesting and disruptive brands in the Android space, these three major markets will no longer see new OnePlus phones — or any OnePlus products — released.
I’ve been using Android phones since I was in middle school. I’ve been a OnePlus fan since getting my hands on an invite to buy the OnePlus One in 2014. I’ve been professionally writing about Android and OnePlus for over 10 years. As someone who’s deeply familiar with OnePlus as a brand and its impact on Android as a whole, it brings me no pleasure to say that OnePlus leaving these markets — specifically the US — is a nightmare scenario.
OnePlus may not have been perfect, but the company’s exit from the US is a truly terrifying sign for the future of Android as we know it.
How worried are you about OnePlus leaving the US? 72 votes Very — the Android market will only get worse. 44 % Slightly, but it's not the end of the world. 21 % Not at all, we'll be fine. 14 % I don't care either way. 21 %
One less brand to push Android forward
For all of its ups and downs, there’s been one through line with OnePlus over the years: it’s always pushed Android phones forward. While that’s not to say companies like Samsung, LG, and Google haven’t done the same, OnePlus had a particularly good knack for this.
With the OnePlus One, OnePlus essentially created the “value flagship” niche. The OnePlus One singlehandedly squashed the idea that you had to pay an exorbitant amount of money to get an Android phone with a flagship chip, premium design, and excellent software. $349 for the 64GB OnePlus One made a $650+ Samsung Galaxy S5 look like a joke.
And that was just the beginning. Over the years, OnePlus would go on to keep pushing the needle forward. The OnePlus 3 brought fast wired charging to the masses, and all these years later, companies like Samsung and Google still haven’t caught up to OnePlus’s lead here. The OnePlus 6T was the first US Android phone with an in-display fingerprint sensor. The OnePlus 7 Pro was the first major Android phone in the US with a 90Hz refresh rate.
So many specs/features that we take for granted today either debuted or were popularized on a OnePlus smartphone — and we need to remember that. Other Android brands would have eventually adopted fast refresh rates or faster charging speeds even if OnePlus hadn’t done so first, but it’s naive to think OnePlus didn’t push its competitors to adopt these features when they did.
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