[Editorial] OnePlus Two : More On Hype, Less On Being “2016 Flagship Killer”

OnePlus is yet again on a disruptive dream run.

The OnePlus Two, the all new flagship from OnePlus is touted to be the “2016 Flagship Killer”. The device as such has enough to go against the big devices of now, including Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and the iPhone 6 for half the price.

OnePlus has taken Apple’s route and claims that they don’t really care about the specifications and that was the reason why they had no problems to let out the specification information one by one towards the launch.

This seems to be hypocritical, OnePlus has always kept hyping about their specs which would make the rest of the industry follow them. Understood, it was all done to generate “Hype” as OnePlus remains a company which has little money to afford for marketing.

Coming back to the OnePlus Two being the “2016 Flagship Killer”, there are a few questions left to be answered.

There are quite a few features which the OnePlus Two lacks,be it the NFC which they claim is hardly used by their customers or the 2K display which according to them isn’t going to enhance the mobile experience. Interestingly every feature the OPT lacks is somehow a gimmick or unused by the consumer.
Quick charge is a feature found on almost every other Flagship, be it from Samsung or LG or HTC, interestingly the OnePlus Two lack this too, along with wireless charging.

No doubt the OnePlus Two is a great device, but claiming it to be the ” 2016 Flagship Killer” while it falls behind the 2015 flagships is a bit going overboard, even for their own meaning of “Hype”.

Its an irony for customers of a company which runs on the slogan “Never settle” to settle without NFC/Quick Charge/Wireless charging/2K Display.

Update: In another self contradiction, Carl Pei, Cofounder of OnePlus claims that Android Pay is going to take another 12-18 months to be widespread by which people would have changed their devices. So much for a company that claims their device to be “future proof” and “2016 flagship Killer”

Conclusion:
No doubt, the OnePlus Two is a great device. It goes up against the top devices for half the price, it does a tremendous job at that. The marketing remains shady, laden with lies & self contradictions. Whether they realize it or not, they are digging their own grave. Maybe HTC & Sony wouldn’t be able to outdo OnePlus but Samsung’s flagship of 2016 holds great potential. Maybe it wouldn’t be able to outdo the OnePlus Two (Hear that, touchwiz?) but the next gen iPhone would be something the OnePlus Two wouldn’t be able to outdo.
Remains to see how users are going to react to their “future proof” “2016 flagship Killer” being outdone early next year. Until then, prepare to Never Settle.