The OnePlus One was a major release on the Android market, and it quickly managed to win the hearts of Android fans all over. There were various good qualities in it, from the solid design and good production quality, to the great marketing which the company applied in order to not only make a name for themselves, but also rise to prominence quite fast. And in the end, the phone was well-liked and many people were eagerly anticipating a new release in the line, expecting it to raise the bar even higher.
However, now that the OnePlus Two is here, opinions about the new device have been rather split, and some seem to believe that the company could have done a lot better for this release. While the original phone had a clearly defined style and direction, this one feels a bit more like a cheap budget model, and this is something fans didn’t appreciate.
On the other hand, it’s still managing to get some pretty good reviews left and right, and many critics seem more or less happy with what the new phone has to offer, despite its obvious shortcomings. It’s not a bad deal for its price, and it could have come with a few extra features that are noticeably missing from the last installment in the line, but the overall package seems to be acceptable.
Some have noted that the company could have maybe kept things like NFC and wireless charging, but in the end it’s also true that those particular features aren’t that popular among everyone right now. NFC has been a bit of a hit and miss, even though BlackBerry in particular tried to popularize it and capitalize on its potential success, but that didn’t end up playing out like that after all.
On the other hand, wireless charging is probably the future for mobile devices, but the technology is still in an early phase and doesn’t have widespread acceptance, which makes the removal of this capability somewhat understandable if the company was trying to keep their budget to a minimum.
The physical design of the device hasn’t suffered at least, and it still looks – and feels – quite stylish, especially for its current price. We don’t know if OnePlus have cut any particular corners there, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. If anything, the new device seems to be an improvement over the last one in terms of its luxury factor.
A problem that pretty much everyone has been pointing out is the decline in marketing efforts from the company. Looking back at the OnePlus One, it’s pretty obvious that a major part of the success of that device lied in the way it was presented to the market. The company knew how to make people want it, and they spent a lot of time and effort on their marketing.
On the other hand, the OnePlus Two wasn’t surrounded by such a massive campaign, especially considering the exclusivity that the OnePlus One had attached to it.
Because of this, the new device hasn’t been that hot in the news ever since it came out, despite being a very popular topic in the weeks leading up to its release. Once people saw what it actually offers and got to hold it in their own hands, they mostly realized that it was overhyped and not really the successor to the iconic OnePlus One that everyone was hoping to get.