+1 for OnePlus. I started years back on the 2, upgraded more recently to the 6T. Will take a lot of convincing for me to even think about anyone else.

Same experience though, people have either heard of it and rave about it, or ask who makes it.

serious q: OnePlus looks *great* but I'm concerned about the Chinese government and the de facto cyberwar with the US.

Example: I have security sensitive US clients, and I'd be concerned that (in the future, let alone present) I'd be labeled a security risk for carrying a "chinese cellphone."

How do you mitigate this concern? (serious replies only please)

Most people don't recognise what cell phone someone has, and I've never had a conversation organically turn to phone models unless someone is buying a new one.

I think if you put a case on it, the make/model of your phone will be brought up exactly 0 times in life.

Small aside: I used a Oneplus X for more than 5 years, but these days I'm not sure what positives OP have over other manufacturers. Early phones were great value but the recent releases just seem like other flagships. And the Nord for my usage is just a Pixel 4a but worse.

If this is a real concern then why not pay attention to it? I believe Apple has the best track record in security and not embedding Chinese gov spyware.

This is the exact same reason I can't go for a OnePlus myself. I would look elsewhere.

edit: even if you flash the phone with open-source ROMs and firmware, the closed-nature of cellphones in general make it nigh impossible to know what hardware backdoors the manufacturers are forced to put in.

I don't care for a flagship phone. I ended up with a Nokia.

While I assume they have it manufactured in China like Apple and the rest of the world it seems, I hope their quality assurance is Europe based.

Honestly though, I will watch the answers here.

OnePlus seems to have same kind of marketing aura as Samsung. I remember when they first came out and my co-workers were bragging about the great features OnePlus had. It turned out that Nexus 5 had all the same stuff.

OnePlus was great when they hit the market because their phones had all the same stuff... but for cheaper to significantly cheaper.

They were never really sold as competing with a Nexus 5, and most people weren't buying a Nexus 5. (Even so, it was still ~20% cheaper.) People were looking at a OPO against a Galaxy S4/S5 and the other flagships that were all more than twice the price.

It was "marketing aura" in the sense that they took a phone that would have normally only appealed to developers/phone geeks and managed to market it to the masses to some extent.

But it wasn't _just_ marketing aura just because there was one other phone on the market that could compete with it. It was a legitimately good offering at the time when a Samsung cost twice as much and their offerings in that price range had seen so little care and attention as to be barely functional in many ways.

Oneplus just isn't the same anymore in my opinion. My two year old OnePlus 6 launched at $530 with flagship specs and a headphone jack. The 9 starts at $730 for the same screen resolution, same storage, and it even loses the headphone jack and OIS.

I'm still using my OnePlus One. Damn thing won't die.

Unfortunately OnePlus hasn't been releasing software updates for their new phones

My understanding is that OxygenOS 11 took longer than expected but has been announced as far back as the 7. It was available for the 8/8T a month ago.

Still I am holding off on it as there are too many issues on various forums. I don't think there's anything I'm missing from Android 11 (yet.)

They've actually promised OxygenOS 11 all the way back to the 6. That said, rumors are that we won't get even a BETA until August meaning it will be more than a year after AOSP release and be out of date before it even ships :(

that's wrong. They've just made their latest release - 10.3.9 - and it's supported on all models back to the 6.

Hello fellow 6T owner. I got it just about three years back, the battery is in perfect shape and the phone doesn't have a scratch on it. If I take off the protection, it can genuinely pass off as new.

I'm never getting a phone without an armor again. That thing has fallen so many times on hard concrete and is completely untouched.

I loved my OnePlus One. But then when I went to replace it years later they'd scraped the headphone jack.

if seems like all collection of social structures eventually coalesce into a duopoly.

It is a legit concern of mine. I've been asked for phone recommendations from family as well, but they only focus on the main brands with a strong preference for Apple as the status symbol and Samsung as the slightly less pricey option for people who want a phone they can do a bit more with (which is to say they see Samsung as the phone I like because it isn't locked down). Even after explaining there is more to Android than just Samsung they don't seem to care because their view seems to be based on what advertisements they watch.

I'm afraid too much critical thinking has been off loaded to corporations through advertisement. Sure, it is just a phone, but for many of these people the $1k price tag is a major part of their disposable income and I don't think enough thought is being given to the far cheaper alternatives.

Not only has it been reduced to two options, the two options have become two of the most expensive options. I don't think this was by chance.

> Even after explaining there is more to Android than just Samsung they don't seem to care because their view seems to be based on what advertisements they watch.

Fashionistas see you the same way when it comes to clothes. Car people see you this way about cars. Furniture people about furniture. Photography nuts about photo gear, knife people about kitchen knives, restaurant critics about restaurants, and the list goes on. Let’s not even get into what audiophiles think of most of our speaker and headphone choices ...

Life is too short to be an expert at everything. Too short to even care about most purchases when good enough is plenty.

Look up satisficing vs maximizing.

that's fine, but why bother asking someone knowledgeable if you're just going to ignore their advice? an audiophile will be disappointed if you ask for a headphone recommendation and say your budget is only $50, but they will probably still suggest a good model for the price.

Sometimes all you need is a little validation from your friend that you made a decent decision.

Most non-technical people I know opt for iPhones because they know they can use them for 5-6 years with 1-2 battery swaps (that costs 30 EUR where I live). And for display quality.

I keep hearing this adage of "iPhone as a status symbol" and I have legitimately never in my life seen it. Only ever saw people on the internet talking about it.

An anecdotal data point for you, if it's useful.

Let me give you some perspective.

It might not be a status symbol in the US and Europe but in the rest of the world it definitely is. I’ve lived in the uk for a while and no one cared that was wearing an iPhone. But as soon as I moved back to my home country everyone thinks I’m rich. And they’re right to think this way as the price of iPhones in my country is completely absurd.

Everyone thinks an 800 pounds phone is expensive?

Imagine if you had to pay almost double of that. In a country that receives less than 200 hundred pounds of monthly minimum wage.

I would never buy an iPhone while living here. It makes no sense unless you really want it as a status symbol.

I work remotely so to me the local average wage bears zero relevance.

I buy an iPhone for a number of reasons. I recognize it's expensive but it's usually at least a 3-year investment and to be fair, the cost per annum is basically the same for most Android flagships, only that Apple users switch devices less often.

This can likely be endlessly contested by the frugal folk but I am not here for that.

My reasons actually are highly irrelevant. I shared an anecdote about very regular non-tech people. They keep telling me the same stories after they switch from Android to iPhone and that's not accidental.

But again, cost of living in the country of residence doesn't mean much if you work remotely.

> It makes no sense unless you really want it as a status symbol.

You could have just said: "I am an Apple hater" and it would have saved us both time and keystrokes. :)

Which country are you talking about?

I used my $80 Android phone for four years. (Blu R1 hd). You you paid more for battery swaps than my phone.

And I likely used mine for much more activities than you used yours.

But if you’re convinced that your choice is superior then you do you. I’m not here to argue, only to provide info of what I did and what many others I know did as well.

You clearly got lucky on that dice roll.

One of the best phones I ever had was a $500 Sony Xperia (amazing battery life). The other best phone was a Nokia 920 (?) Windows phone (zero cognitive load). Tech superiority and user experience are not market defining factors, clearly. I think both Samsung and Apple are trainwrecks compared to their earlier offerings. This because of a lack of competition now.

speaking of "Tech superiority," IMHO... I still think that the Palm OS Centro that I used so many years ago was simply the best. The Nokias of that era just didn't compete. I don't remember the cost but I really don't think it was at all expensive. I do remember that I could anything and everything with little gem. Sometimes I say I'd buy it again in a heartbeat if it had today's processing power. Ah, the good ol' days....

that seems to be the case:

- two-party government,

- two major desktop OSs (macOS and Windows),

- two main mobile OSs (android and iOS),

- two major phone manufacturers (Apple and Samsung),

- two main internet browsers (Chrome and Firefox),

- two mainstream cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin and Ethereum),

- two major home internet providers (Verizon and Comcast)

- two ...

There are exceptions of course, esp. in the retail market and fast food industry, but I'm afraid the good-ol' times choices in many areas are mostly gone.

Ha I wish your point about browsers was correct. Sorry, Safari is (a very distant) number 2.

https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share

Except for Safari's mandatory monopoly on iPhone/iPad, unfortunately.

That should get fixed soon(ish) when Apple is forced to allow other app stores on their devices. Real firefox / real Chrome / emulators / etc!

Actually only one broadband ISP choice for many households

Ah yes, it was so much better before...