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OnePlus One – $299 CyanogenMod 'killer' smartphone
- vini 13y agoand I wondering why takes an eternity to load this site: http://cl.ly/V9dZ/fail_one.png http://cl.ly/V9dZ/fail_one.png
- nomercy400 13y agoWelcome to the world of ecommerce software.
- jackgavigan 13y agoA startup smartphone manufacturer and a community-developed fork of an open source operating system. Such things legends are made of.
- mhandley 13y agoThe OnePlus site seems to be reduced to a crawl. Engadget has a reasonable review here though: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/23/oneplus-one-launch-ceo-pete-lau-interview/ http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/23/oneplus-one-launch-ceo-pe...
- patrickk 13y agoThat review makes it sound like an amazing phone. Chinese companies that understand product quality like this should have other handset manufacturers scared. It sounds like they're taking their design to almost Apple levels of obsession.
- slowmotiony 13y agoI think the website is down. Is it available to buy? Can it be shipped to europe?
- sprremix 13y agoIt is only available on invitation IIRC. I don't know when you we can expect this phone in stores, like physical stores. Those invitations were given out on the forums and to people who where interested/had interest in the Nexus 5.
- nomercy400 13y agoNo physical stores, no resellers. They say it's too expensive.
- king_magic 13y agoWhat exactly makes this a killer? I'm having a hard time seeing it. It just looks liked any one of a dozen similar Android phones, with more power/memory/horsepower? Calling something a killer by itself does not a killer make.
- vidarh 13y agoIt's aiming to compete feature by feature with high-end Android phones and the iPhone, at a substantially lower price point. Not looked closely enough at it to know if it's likely to succeed at that. Their cheapest model is threading close to the mid-range cheap MTK based Android phones coming out of China.
- king_magic 13y agoAh got it - that makes a lot more sense. I didn't get that impression from their site, so I couldn't understand what the fuss was about. I'm an iPhone user, so I'm probably not exactly their target market, but I sort of still am I suppose, and not being able to understand where a particular Android phone lies on The Grand Scale of Android Phones (without doing a ton of research) has always been one of my frustrations with the Android world.
- frooxie 13y agoBasically, you get 90% of the features of the best Android smartphones at half the price.
- samolang 13y agoThe Nexus 5 is only $350. This phone is nominally cheaper, but I wouldn't say 'killer'. I will think about getting it next time I purchase a phone though (I use a Nexus 5 now).
- higherpurpose 13y agoOnePlus has 64GB of storage for $350, Nexus 5 only 16GB. It also seems to have a significantly better camera and much faster, too (Rear: f/2.0 13 MP Sony Exmor IMX 214 sensor, w/4K video recording. Dual-LED flash. 0.3s shutter speed) It also has a 3100 mAh battery vs 2300 mAh for Nexus 5. The processor I don't care about since 801 is just a repackaged 800 anyway, like all of Qualcomm's new processors.
- kissickas 13y agoForgive me for being slightly snobby (and maybe too tangential), but I always find it completely off-putting when people try to be "hip" and put the $ sign after a number (as in 1$ here; they're also internally inconsistent). I'd like to hear other people's thoughts on the matter, especially if you think I'm misinterpreting the motivation behind it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_symbol#Usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_symbol#Usage edit: Muphry's Law, and trying hard not to ask why people are downvoting my curiosity (but failing)
- masklinn 13y ago> I'd like to hear other peoples' thoughts on the matter, especially if you think I'm misinterpreting the motivation behind it. Author is from a culture where the currency symbol goes after the sum, does not realise it's before in the US. Internal inconsistency likely linked to multiple authors and lack of review. Since when is putting the currency sign in the "wrong" place "hip"? Why would you assume such a thing instead of a honest mistake? You even linked to a page stating: > many [non-anglo non-latin-american cultures] place [the currency sign] after the amount (note that contrary to this article's exact wording, this is cultural rather than currency-based, within the EU some countries put the € symbol before the amount, others after: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_issues_concerning_the_euro#Summary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_issues_concerning_th... — and this is not solely linked to english-speaking, Austria uses prefix where Germany uses postfix; Denmark and Latvia use prefix, ...)
- kissickas 13y agoI have a friend who thinks it's "younger" to put it afterwards, and I figured the designers of this site might be from the same generation, as are a few (younger) HNers. I did read the page I linked, that's why I linked it.
- dagw 13y agoI think it's far more likely that the author is from a place which puts the currency symbol after the number and simply made a mistake. I've never seen or heard of anybody intentionally doing it incorrectly for effect.
- kourt 13y agoCan't wait for the QWERTY version :)
- aeturnum 13y agoI just bought a used LG g2 to escape the disaster that is the Droid 4, but I would happily spend another 3-400 on a phone with a physical keyboard. On screen keyboards, like gel-cap keyboards, work well enough, but I would love a premium option.
- epaladin 13y agoWikipedia says the company was founded just a few months ago, in December. Even with using "commodity" components, I wouldn't have thought that 4-5 months was enough time to go all the way through a design cycle for something like a phone. The founder used to work for Oppo, is Oppo manufacturing these? Edit: according to the Engadget review/article, these are being built by Oppo.
- NonEUCitizen 13y agoIf you partner with an ODM you can come out with these in a short timeframe.
- MikusR 13y agoIt's basically an Oppo (founder worked there) Find 7.
- listic 13y agoI wish it was available in non-huge form factor, like this one, at most http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_one_mini-5505.php http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_one_mini-5505.php
- crashandburn4 13y agoI quite like the bigger screen, if they were going for multiple devices it'd be great if they'd make a smaller one too but, since they need to focus, I'm glad they went for a larger one. In addition since they're trying to feature compete at a lower price point it makes sense for them to go for the bigger one first. P.S. does anyone know how they can afford to sell it for so cheap? just looking at the specs I find it hard to understand.
- listic 13y agoToo huge for the hand and pocket, IMO, as well as virtually all modern phones. Really, is there such a big difference between a 5" and 4"? It's a phone, first and foremost, a thing that has to be easily handled and pocketed. I bought my first smartphone recently, was initially going for a used Nexus 4, since it's on the smaller side of what is considered the usual today, got nice specs and software directly from Google. But when I looked at HTC One mini in the store, I knew I would regret if I buy any other phone, since it's not just ok, but kinda nice; probably the best design you can get short of buying an iPhone (not that it's impossible, but I get a feeling that the competitors are hardly trying). Even though I'm not a fan of Sense UI, and there's no Cyanogen support. I'd like it to be even smaller still (maybe 4.0" instead of 4.3 screen, it shouldn't be a notable difference), but you can't get that with modern phones. An evidence that current phones are too big is the existence of this: http://www.htc.com/us/accessories/htc-mini-plus/ http://www.htc.com/us/accessories/htc-mini-plus/ Get a second, smaller, phone for your phone, so that you won't have to pull out your huge phone each time you need to make or receive a call!
- dublinben 13y agoThe Moto X is almost exactly the same size as the HTC One mini, and only slightly larger than the iPhone 5S. It has a larger screen that either, due to not have an absurdly large bezel on all sides. http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Apple-iPhone-5s,Motorola-Moto-X/phones/7710,7885#/phones/size/Apple-iPhone-5s,Motorola-Moto-X,HTC-One-mini/phones/7710,7885,7702 http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Apple-iPhone-5s,Motoro...
- NonEUCitizen 13y agoDoes it have an appstore ?
- msthomaa 13y agoYes, Google Play store.
- aeroevan 13y agoOther than Google Play? Because it will have Google Play.
- zz1 13y agoOther than Google Play Store, you can use FDroid. Firefox Marketplace also provides Apps: the offer is very tiny at the moment, but will likely grow in near future. https://f-droid.org/ https://f-droid.org/ https://marketplace.firefox.com/ https://marketplace.firefox.com/
- sp332 13y agoYou can also get the Amazon app store. http://www.amazon.com/gp/mas/get/android http://www.amazon.com/gp/mas/get/android
- venomsnake 13y agoDoes it have unlocked bootloader and root?
- dagw 13y agoLatest I've read is that the bootloader will be locked and phone won't be rooted out of the box. However bootloader will easily be unlockable and rooting the phone is supported and won't affect warranties.
- yincrash 13y agothis is the approach that google takes with the nexus devices and is really the only reasonably secure approach (for the consumer)
- anonymousDan 13y agoWoah, are you saying that you can root a google nexus phone without voiding the warranty? I assumed you weren't allowed to do that, would be great if you can.
- ChrisClark 13y agoYeah, you can. And at least on the newer Nexus phones, you can even re-lock them without any trace of it ever being unlocked.
- yincrash 13y agoyup. you just reflash the stock rom, then relock the bootloader, and it's like new
- jsheard 13y agoThe catch is that the device gets wiped during the unlock, so someone can't disable a PIN-lock by going through the back door and access sensitive data.
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- bobbles 13y agoFor everyone thinking "What's the catch?" the catch is, you can't buy it. They are doing 100x 'invite-only' purchases during April, and I haven't seen anything explaining more availability than that.
- nodata 13y agoSo the "catch" is that they only have a hundred to sell over the next week? That doesn't seem like much of a catch, it sounds like marketing.
- jonathansizz 13y agoYeah, and it looks like they're not actually selling them - they're giving them away if you smash your old phone!
- oscilloscope 13y agoThis seems incredibly wasteful.
- glaberficken 13y agoAm I the only one that cringes each time i see the promise "over a day's worth of battery life." We used to have 2 weeks of battery life on any normal mobile phone.
- mhurron 13y agoAnd that mobile phone didn't do half what this and other smart phones do.
- nodata 13y agoNo we didn't, not at the time. Go back ten years and we had a few days worth of battery life. Fast forward to now, and you'll get two weeks out of any non-smart phone.
- onli 13y agoThat is not true. If you bought a bigger battery, you could have 3 weeks 10 years ago (I had). And even without, 1-2 for a mobile phone was normal.
- nodata 13y agoWhich phones had 2 weeks battery life back then? Do you mean only on standby, or normal use?
- onli 13y agoThat one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_5100 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_5100 (10 days, standby). I had the 5120 for ages with a better battery from ebay, that came closer to my claims.
- at-fates-hands 13y agoEven the extended batteries were like a Boba Fett jetpack on the back of your phone and increased the size substantially. Most of the power users I knew (2,000+ minutes/month) would still burn through the battery in short order anyways. They'd get maybe an extra 6 hours, but not 2 weeks worth.
- chiachun 13y agoThe price is actually higher than some of the cheap smartphones from Asia. What interested me is that CyanogenMod is now an OS of a 'killer' smartphone.
- zmk_ 13y agoSeems to be a good device, but if there is no wireless charging I am out. It is one of those things that once you have you cannot go back. But the price point, the implicit promise of updates forever from CM team, and the fact that Google is moving to closed-source with key apps that used to be OS, does make this a very attractive phone. I hope there will be OnePlus Two.
- jdc0589 13y ago> but if there is no wireless charging I am out. Pretty much. It seems like it's such a trivial feature that it shouldn't matter, but dear god it is convenient. Can never go back after 1 year with the palm pre a few years ago.
- rplnt 13y agoIs any tablet that can makes calls a phone? Technically yes I guess, but it's still weird to call it that.
- pja 13y agoThe single thing that really stands out for me in the pricing: 16G $299 64G $349 $50 for 64G of high quality flash memory at retail price actually sounds reasonable!
- TsomArp 13y agoIt is nice, but it is 48GB (64-16).
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- TsomArp 13y agoNo, but you have to at least subtract the cost of the 16GB one.
- pja 13y agoTrue enough. Meanwhile Apple will charge you $200 for the same upgrade. (Yes, I know the Apple price isn't really about the flash, it's about segmented the user base into 'will pay (lots) more' and 'willing to compromise on the storage to get the cheaper deal'. The net result is much the same for the end user though.)
- deweller 13y agoCan you recommend a low-cost voice/data carrier in the US for this phone?
- jchendy 13y agohttp://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans Near the bottom there's a $30/month plan with 5gb LTE data, unlimited text, and 100 voice minutes.
- hengheng 13y agoAs always in hardware, established volume manufacturers are going to have a huge edge on any newcomer. Companies like Samsung and Apple have an astonishing vertical range in their manufacturing process, with their own IP cores / custom processors / custom operating systems / custom antenna design / custom case design. You can't just go out and beat all that at once, and offer the same product but cheaper. I find the comments who say "omg it's not cheap why should I buy this" a bit condescending. You can't be any cheaper than the big companies, or else you'll have to beat them at what they're good at. If you can, you're an established player, good on you, but you most likely don't belong on HN. As always in startup terms, you have to find your individual edge. This will always be a small gadget type of thing initially (as with most web startups), hoping to attain more traction down the line, enabling you to extend your product step by step. I really liked the Jolla phone with its I2C interface and the "second half" concept. Sweet stuff. Unique to the market, catering to the small production volumes they would be confronted with, and most importantly attracting just the right crowd of producers. If Seth Godin's Tribe Marketing rings a bell with you, then this is it. Oneplus One, or Oppo for short, brings none of this to the table. They have a good high-volume manufacturing process, and have been selling single quantities on aliexpress for a long time. They seem good, but they had nothing unique going for them whatsoever. They used to be the archetypal me-too chinese manufacturer that tries to make a difference by striving for spec high scores (more megapixels! yay!), but neccessarily failing to deliver in other regards. They have been looking for their edge for some time now, first with that rotatable camera gadget instead of a separate front camera, which at least got them some attention. Alas, there was a reason all other products came with two separate cameras, one being distinct usage scenarios for the two cameras and another being the rather complex case design. So at the end of the day, their design was just a stunt to demonstrate their manufacturing capabilities, and also their ability to justify large investments into injection molds. Impressive, but not attractive to me. So their next attempt is a tacked on piece of open source software. Of course, these two companies are looking for a match here, with cyanogenmod having no clear business process but a distinctive product, and Oppo having everything else. It still feels like a cheap concept, and evidently they are centering their sales pitch around price. This always feels like a warning sign to me, indicative of a low emphasis on R&D. (Especially when compared to Samsung and Apple, who pump out a remarkable lot of innovative stuff even though they are market leaders.) So, yeah. Personally I'll be using my second-hand Samsung Note 2 for the time being, and as soon as I feel adventurous I'll try out the Jolla. I'll be watching Oppo, but I could be more excited tbh, and I certainly don't buy into their newly-acquired startup flair. Open Source software just doesn't give you street cred like that anymore.
- zx2c4 13y agoLooks great, but when oh when oh when will there be a version with a hardware keyboard? I program on my smart phone. I can do that damn fast with a hardware keyboard. Touchscreen keyboards aren't feasible.
- stevehawk 13y agoWhen someone revokes RIM's stupid hardware keyboard patent or it expires.
- maxsilver 13y agoCome on, that's not fair. Absolutely nothing prevents someone from building a keyboard phone. OEM's are free to build any hardware keyboard they want, so long as it isn't a direct cut-and-paste copy of RIM's. No one forced Typo to copy the exact RIM keyboard. There's plenty of precedent here : http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/reviews/117747-image/Motorola-Photon-Q-Review-12.jpg http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/reviews/117747-image/Moto... http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/hp-palm-pre3.jpeg http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/hp-palm-pre3.jpeg http://www.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/att-samsung-captivate-glide.jpg http://www.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/att-...
- AUmrysh 13y agoWhat about using a bluetooth keyboard?
- listic 13y agoWhat is the availability of OnePlus One for non-US users?
- ctdonath 13y agoAmusing to view that link right after reading the "Sell me this pen" link http://m.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/sell-me-this-pen-the-real-answer-to-the-wolf-of-wall-streets-challenge/article17946810/?service=mobile http://m.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/internationa... The CyanogenMod page tells me nothing. "Killer phone"? meh. Address my needs; if it's not smaller than an iPhone and can migrate me from that ecosystem, forget it. Otherwise, it's just a list of specs.
- davexunit 13y agoWhat binary blobs are required for it to operate? I want a phone that doesn't require nonfree firmware in order for the 802.11 wireless chip to operate.
- muyuu 13y agoQualcomm doesn't release open source drivers for Adreno graphics, so there's that at least. There's a reverse engineering project "freedreno" but I doubt they use that (I don't think it even supports all features). In the ARM SoC space that's quite common (blobs at least for 3D graphics). I don't know if there's something else.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoI believe the 'standard' two, 3D graphics and the LTE radio. I've seen efforts to create an open source graphics driver for Adreno (the GPU) but not the radio. Once you've got both of those you can build a phone for Stallman with all the code available for inspection. Maybe the Ettus guys could help with that.
- dublinben 13y agoThere's quite a bit of proprietary software in a smartphone beyond just the GPU and modem driver. The entire baseband firmware is another (closed) operating system to contend with.
- gcb0 13y agoAnd audio, and camera... Etc.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoI tend to bundle the baseband blob and the modem blob as "the radio" but agree that is an over simplification.
- pedrocr 13y agoA big simplification indeed. Replacing the modem bit should actually be pretty easy, it's just the interface glue. Replacing the baseband is much harder as that implements all the wireless protocols needed for GSM/3G/LTE. Since the baseband tends to run on an independent processor capable of accessing all main memory it's kind of scary what could be there. Even if the hardware design is better and the baseband is behind some form of MMU it is still capable of sending your location and all your traffic to an attacker. That together with the fact that most Android phones don't get any meaningful upgrades makes Android a minefield when it comes to security.
- blueskin_ 13y agoNo SD card? I'm out. If they added that, I would get one, the price is amazing - although I'd flash a default CM image over it to get rid of that metro theme they've added.
- sp332 13y agoThe 64 GB version seems like plenty of space. If you need to transfer data and you don't like wifi, you can get a USB OTG cable and a USB microSD card reader for $10.
- rogerbinns 13y agoMy must have these days is wireless charging (Qi). It is so convenient being able to just place the device down and have charging immediately happen. Also fantastic for use in the car cradles so you don't have to connect power each time.
- lsiebert 13y agoAlso, usb power can eventually stop working/work intermittently. But for most devices, you can add it after.
- aeturnum 13y agoI recently switched from a phone with a sd card slot to one without. I miss the cheap extra storage, but having 'only' 64 gigs of storage hasn't hurt me yet. Is there a particular use case that an SD card allows and large built-in storage doesn't? Would internal storage of 128gb be enough?
- blueskin_ 13y ago>having 'only' 64 gigs of storage hasn't hurt me yet If I only have 64GB (plus OS overhead, plus normal data, plus Android likes to report as being out of space when there is still some left), then once I put my music on, I'm almost out, not ideal when I want a few large apps, to download a large file temporarily, etc...
- dalek2point3 13y agothe video on the homepage is pretty bad. I dont want to look at some guy making sketches of the design, i want to see the phone. Also, isnt software a big sell for this Cynagen? I've never installed the Mod before -- can the video show me how the insides of the phone are supposed to look like? pretty please?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- null_ptr 13y ago> will receive updates for at least 2 years I had my phone for over 3 years now and aside from some tiny screen scratches everything is great. Why can't any manufacturers really stand behind their products and support them for something like 5 years?
- eclipxe 13y agoCost
- Guvante 13y agoI wonder how much of an effect "I guess I might as well get a new phone" has on things? Especially given most fixes require a significant portion of the cost of the phone to perform.
- gcb0 13y agoGreed. Even google with all the money and more interest in acquiring users joined the greed bandwagon by removing Sd card slots and doing things in software to ensure device obsolency ever couple years.
- segmondy 13y agoGoogle's removal of SD card has nothing to do with making device useless ever few years. It has everything to do with their cloud strategy. Google wants everything in the cloud. If your information is in the cloud, they can possible get access to it to better understand you so they can target more relevant ads. If your information is on the cloud, you will also have to spend more time online. That's why google devices, phones, tablet, chromebooks don't have removeable storage.
- xioxox 13y agoI would never buy a new phone unless it has an SD slot or perhaps 64GB of storage. How useful is the cloud when you're literally above a cloud in a plane? That's mostly when I use my phone for music playback.
- SkyMarshal 13y agoVery nice, better hardware than Google Nexus 5 [1] at better price, though larger, slightly thicker and heavier. http://www.google.com/nexus/5/ http://www.google.com/nexus/5/
- MichaelGG 13y agoWhy would anyone choose the on-screen keys if you've already sacrificed the space for dedicated keys?
- killerna 13y agoarrrrr.... I wanna get one, so I just lookup their site, but it says I need to get invitation to buy because their limited stock. http://support.oneplus.net/hc/en-us/articles/201866890-Why-do-I-need-an-invite-to-buy-a-OnePlus-One- http://support.oneplus.net/hc/en-us/articles/201866890-Why-d...
- kapilkale 13y agoIn the features section where they compare their camera vs. that of another smartphone, they're doing some shady stuff. The two pictures are identical! They've photoshopped the original to look shittier, and passed it off as being taken by another smartphone. link: http://imgur.com/VG8AUg3 http://imgur.com/VG8AUg3
- b0z0 13y agoUm, the point isn't about photo quality in the comparison. I have to agree that it's confusing, but actually they're trying to highlight the fact that their phone has a wider viewing angle. (If you look, their picture includes more people.)
- GioM 13y agoIt's not photoshopped, it's just cropped to show you their wide angle vs a typical camera. Quoting the website, directly beside the picture you've linked: "The extra-wide 80º viewing angle captures more area than other phones so your pictures will include more background without distortion. "
- 97s 13y agoWhat's up with the mailing list. I am very excited about this phone, would like the email updates.
- leke 13y agoAre OnePlus offering any guarantee of OS updates with their products?
- DonGateley 13y agoWhat carriers is it incompatible with?
- corin_ 13y agoSeems really odd using "Never Settle" given how much AMD has been pushing that slogan for their GPUs.
- zobzu 13y agoThis reminds me of the galaxy s1 and s2. Its pretty damn competitive, and its half the price of the others. I bought the s2 for 400 on release day and it was awesome enough. Nowadays the s5 is 6-700 on release day. if they deliver what they show - im probably getting one of these oneplus - not a S5 or even an xperia Z2 - thanks but no thanks.
- kreeben 13y agoI have used cm before and would trust them enough to buy a product like this. But the phone is too big though. My 4" moto g is perfect.
- enscr 13y agoGreat specs, but I prefer the Moto G model. Other than its camera, everything is superb for a pro-user who doesn't play games. Battery life is great, screen is awesome, 1GB RAM is more than sufficient. Best of all, it's the price that I love.