The market for smartphones is quite developed and tightly packed with competitors nowadays. Several big brands dominate by a large margin, and it’s next to impossible for a new player to get their foot in the door unless they invest significantly in marketing, or have something particularly unique to offer. When OnePlus decided to release their One phone two years ago, almost nobody had heard of the company – but because they had both of the above factors secured, the launch of the device was quite smooth and was met with a lot of interest by the crowds.
Last year, the company followed up with a successor to the device, the OnePlus 2. And while it was touted as the “2016 flagship killer”, reception to the phone was not quite as overwhelming as it was for the OnePlus One. Some people compared the situation with the HTC One M8 and M9, claiming that the phone was actually pretty good by itself, but people were comparing its launch to that of its predecessor unfairly. In the end, the OnePlus 2 was seen as a relatively good device, but not as original of an offer as the previous one was.
This attitude is still noticeable today, as the original OnePlus One seems to be enjoying greater long-term reception than its successor, and many people are still fond of the previous phone, enough to use it as a daily device and even for more advanced purposes like app development.
What exactly was it that made the OnePlus One so good in the first place though? According to most experts, it was a combination of several favorable factors. The company approached the release of the device with more unusual marketing, and they accented heavily on making the phone mysterious and desired. There was a lot of talk about the One before it even hit the market, and some people were practically just waiting for the phone to come out so they could get their hands on it.
It also had a more interesting approach to its software – OnePlus decided to use the popular custom ROM CyanogenMod instead of the main Android release, and this was met with a lot of excitement from users. Many Android fans are fond of tweaking their devices more precisely, messing with settings and customizing their experience, and CyanogenMod is pretty much the most popular platform for that. Releasing a commercial device based on it was a very smart move by the company, and it paid off very well.
According to some experts, the OnePlus One still remains one of the best Android phones for certain purposes, such as app development. There are a few features to the phone which make it much more useful to a software developer than a standard Android phone, especially the fact that it comes preloaded with a custom ROM. Combined with the overall attitude of the company towards its users, it’s easy to see why the phone was received so well.
With all that in mind, we can easily see the phone lasting a lot longer in the top spot, and it could end up being one of the more successful Android devices on the market in the long run. It has various qualities that make this a real possibility, and the way OnePlus handled everything about the original release easily set them up for that. Whether or not they will be able to replicate this success in the future is under question though, and it’s something that many people are wondering about right now.