It seems rather a long time since the Chinese company OnePlus launched a smartphone that shook up the market. The first, OnePlus One, was positioned as a 'flagship killer' that urged users to "Never Settle' for quality at exorbitant prices when you could get high end design and specifications at an affordable one.
The OnePlus One also was famous for its Cyanogen Mod-based operating system, welcomed as a diametric opposite to heavy interfaces from other companies, particularly Samsung, known to slow down a device, in time.
But then came the OnePlus 2 and that wasn't quite a step-change over its predecessor as fans might have wanted. Heating and battery issues still get talked about online. It wasn't a bad phone, but not the flagship killer it wanted to be nor did it stem the tide of budget phones flooding the market even when its price was reduced.
The OnePlus X has been a good looking phone, but on the inside, there's nothing ground breaking. Having just dropped its price by Rs.2,000, it's still a bit of a forgotten product now.
So what does OnePlus have up its sleeve for its next flagship killer? For a while there, rumours stirred up hopes of a OnePlus 3 launch on April 7th because OnePlus is due to hold some sort of event on that date in China. But that has been laid to rest by the company which clarified, according to several news reports, that the event was not the OnePlus 3 launch. That, may still be a little way off.
Some so-called 'leaks' have nevertheless been doing the rounds online. The OnePlus 3 will apparently have the Snapdragon 820 - but so will many smartphones by the time the year is done. It's said that the phone will start with a 32GB model, not 16GB, It will also have a 16MP camera and will be based on Android 6.0. None of this is particularly difficult to guess at however, and the OnePlus 3 is going to need a lot more than these easy-to-guess specifications if it's to challenge the other smartphones that are busy being flagship killers, specially most recently, the Xiaomi Mi 5. Even a new design may not be enough as differentiation becomes more difficult than ever.
BW Reporters
Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.
