With OnePlus 5T, OnePlus is now all set to lure in the iPhone users

In a month’s time, Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus will be celebrating its 4^th anniversary and in just a couple of years the company has had a taste of unimaginable success, unexpected failure and unstoppable success yet again. Along the way the company has not only learnt the art of making good phones but also learnt a lesson of humility as per co-founder Carl Pei.

OnePlus is now onto its sixth flagship phone with the newly launched OnePlus 5T. The new phone has also joined the league of high end phones by creating a buzz and featuring in multiple leaks leading to the actual launch. The biggest change in the OnePlus 5T from its predecessor OnePlus 5 is the display, yes, finally it’s an immersive display. Then again it does make you feel that they should have brought the bigger display with the OnePlus 5 which was launched only six months back. However they packed the new OnePlus 5T with a 6-inch Full Optic AMOLED Display with 18:9 aspect ratio for immersive viewing experience. The bigger display comes in a bigger body too. Unlike the OnePlus 3T, OnePlus 5T has a different shape than the 5 where it has an elongated shape moving closer to the shape of premium phones likes iPhone X, Google Pixel 2 XL, Samsung Galaxy S8. The immersive viewing experience also means that the finger print sensor gets a place on the back of the phone now. The new phone also comes with facial recognition, It may not be like the infrared face ID on the iPhone X but it’s the first OnePlus device to have this feature. In terms of the camera, the 5T version will apparently produce better portraits and low light images as it has one camera specially tuned for low light photography. And since its “no rocket science”, OnePlus has decided to keep the headphone jack on the OnePlus 5T atleast for the time being.

What could be a bit of a downer for the OnePlus 5 buyers is the fact that the upgrade is already here and the pricing for the 5T version is pretty close to the 5. The OnePlus 5T will be available in 64 GB and 128 GB in the color Midnight Black priced at Rs 32,999 and Rs. 37,999 respectively. Amazon continues to be OnePlus’ exclusive online partner and the OnePlus 5T will be available in an early access sale on Amazon along with the company’s website and experience store in Bangalore on 21^st November. OnePlus 5 was extremely popular among online buyers in India, the phone became the best selling phone in the first quarter of the launch on Amazon.

Also Read: One-On-One with OnePlus Founder, Pete Lau

OnePlus made it quite clear that the company is eyeing the iPhone users. At one point Brian Yoon, Head of user experience design for OnePlus directly addressed the iPhone users attending the launch while talking about soon to launch app called OnePlus Switch which will enable easy transfer of data from oldphone to the OnePlus 5T and most importantly how it’s also compatible with iPhone. Carl Pei also talked about how back in 2013; the smartphone market in general was not doing too well which according to Pei was the reason why many users had no choice but to buy the iPhone. The situation back then was also the reason why a team of engineers started to create OnePlus - to bring together “the openness of Android with Apple’s focus on design and user experience”. It is perhaps the intention of creating a device that is high on performance and design, catering to avid phone users like themselves, which helped the company sell 1 million devices of the first flagship phone OnePlus One when they were only expecting to sell about 50,000 units.

OnePlus 5 is easily one of the best phones of the year, so the OnePlus 5T with handful but what seems like some super powerful changes (that too at almost the same price) is built to succeed. But will they be able to lure in the iPhone users, only time will tell.