OnePlus 6T review: The automatic choice

OnePlus, the Chinese company setting the “premium segment” in India on
fire, is out with its latest and greatest smartphone.

With not one, but two OnePlus smartphones, coming out in the first half of
2019, it would have made more sense to focus on those rather than to bring
out an ultra safe and not-worth-it upgrade with the 6T.

The problem with OnePlus is that they’ve settled with playing it safe. None
of their smartphones, since the days of the OnePlus 3, have been radical or
innovative. At that time, back in 2016, OnePlus was the “flagship killer”.
It brought in a smartphone with flagship hardware at half the price of
similar smartphones from Samsung and Apple. Today, there are other players
in the segment.

Still, saying that, OnePlus is the de facto choice for consumers in India.
It’s a popular choice among the youth of the nation, with word of mouth and
peer pressure, playing a huge role.

That the OnePlus 6T comes with flagship hardware - Snapdragon 845, 8GB of
RAM and 128GB of storage - is absolutely no surprise. That the company has
forgotten about innovation, is the biggest surprise.

All their phones play it safe these days. The company plans on releasing
two phones, early in 2019, with one of them being a 5G smartphone. Once
again, with India not expecting to get ‘proper’ 5G until 2020, that’s
smartphone won’t make any sense for Indian consumer. It’ll also be more
expensive.

Therefore, all eyes will be on the OnePlus 7. One can safely say that the
OnePlus 6T has failed to excite the consumer. It’s got an in-display
fingerprint scanner, a mid-range camera and a super fast software (Oxygen
OS). Still, there isn’t any feature that differentiates the smartphone from
the consumer.

Despite all of this, customers in India are willing to spend, time and time
again on a OnePlus smartphone. They refuse to look past the competition,
which has only gotten stronger, in recent times. That says a lot about the
brand, its value among the youth, and the products it is launching. Calling
the ‘in-display fingerprint scanner’ and the removal of the headphone jack
as radical innovations will only alienate some of the company’s loyal
customer base. With the price of each successive smartphone increasing,
OnePlus will still be able to make the same amount or even more money with
lesser sales.

2019 will be make or break for the company.

The OnePlus 6T is the fastest Android smartphone on the market - even
faster than the newly launched Pixel 3 from Google - and no other mobile
phone even comes close. It’s a great looking smartphone - just check out
the Thunder Purple variant - and can withstand many a drop. There are many
positives going for the OnePlus 6T but no wow factor. That’s a great shame.

2019 is innovation year and one hopes OnePlus will stop playing it safe.
Till then, the OnePlus 6T is the automatic choice, if you’re looking for an
upgrade. If you have the OnePlus 6, or even the OnePlus 5T, or any
smartphone purchased over the past 12 months, then you’re better off
waiting till the innovation kicks in early next year from all these
manufacturers.

The OnePlus 6T a great phone that lacks something extra. For under Rs
40,000, this is a great value for money smartphone. OnePlus seems to have
figured out the market and its target audience but time is running out and
the company needs a Big Bang product in 2019 to keep its #1 position in the
premium segment of the Indian market.

Also read: iPhone sales in India faces downfall for first time in four years, claims reports