I’m still a bit worried about the cult phone company.
OnePlus holds a special place in the heart of a lot of geeks. More than any other phone maker, it’s managed to keep the aura of a young, tech-centric startup, even as it’s actually owned by phone giant BBK. It was originally known for its flagship killers, unlocked phones with spectacular specs for the price, but in recent years it’s been trying to compete on carrier shelves with mixed success. With the OnePlus Nord N10 and the N100 (shown above, en masse), the company may have hit a sweet spot. We think the new $299 Nord N10 is the best budget smartphone in America right now. Wave7 Research told us that free-with-a-new-line promotions have vaulted it to 15% market share at Metro by T-Mobile, which is just huge. Mostly, OnePlus seems to be eating Motorola’s lunch; the Moto G lineup used to be the no-brainer affordable phones we’d recommend, but they’re not so great this year. (You are a phone geek, so you ask: What about Google’s Pixels? Google puts very little effort into selling Pixels, and they’re such a tiny part of Google’s business that it seems to keep losing them in the couch cushions.) It’s tough for a company that isn’t Samsung or Apple to find a real niche in the US market, but prepaid is a good way to do it. Numbers from Ookla and M Science show that the top 5G phone models in the US are all from Samsung or Apple, and Wave7 Research typically has those two companies scoring around 90% of postpaid US sales. So going downscale may be the smartest thing OnePlus could do.
