Having been founded back in 2013, OnePlus rose to fame with the release of its first smartphone, the OnePlus One which was dubbed the flagship killer of the year with a low price point and with flagship specs. After enjoying the success of the OnePlus One, the company released the OnePlus 2 which was supposed to be the flagship killer of 2015, but that didn’t really work out. After more than a year later, OnePlus released its third flagship, the OnePlus 3 which has been praised by many and it can be bought without having to get an invite. According to the founder of OnePlus, Carl Pei, the company takes into account many factors before releasing a device.
One such factor is feedback from users. The company takes a lot of questions and feedback from users on its OnePlus forum. This is especially obvious on the packaging of the OnePlus 3 as the words “created together with our fans” is printed on it. Pei also stated that users definitely think that the OnePlus 3 is better than its predecessor, the OnePlus 2, especially the design of the new device. Pei believes that upgrades such as the included Dash Charge feature is also a major difference from the OnePlus 2. According to Pei, the Dash charger doesn’t make your device hot and is different from other fast charging technologies. For example, if you turn on the GPS on your device in the car, the device will start to get hot and you will not be able to charge it, but with Dash Charge, that isn’t the case and charging can be done. He also adds that OnePlus 3 users who use dash charging over conventional charging can expect a longer battery shelf life. Another feature to be included in the OnePlus 3 is NFC, which wasn’t featured on the OnePlus 2. This change came about after many users complained of the lack of NFC on the OnePlus 2 and according to Pei, NFC is being used more frequently around the globe especially in the payments space.
On the OnePlus X being discontinued, Pei has said that we shouldn’t expect a successor for the time being. He explained that consumers could have gone for any branded smartphone at the same price of the OnePlus X when it was launched globally and that OnePlus was never a brand that competed with manufacturers on pricing. The company also looks at Apple products in terms of optimization when developing its own products. For example, the company optimizes the framework to see how fast everything should feel like, from the animations to the menu and there cannot be any frame drops.