OnePlus has been synonymous with value for years. It’s the Android phone brand to buy if you want the same performance as a top-tier Samsung model for hundreds of dollars less. (Usually, with sacrifices in other areas.) But as the company began producing more well-rounded phones, prices have jumped. Earlier this year, the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro became its priciest phones yet, with the latter being only $100 cheaper than Samsung’s Galaxy S20. Now it’s coming out with an updated 8T model.
These days, there are a lot of good phones vying for your attention in the price window OnePlus once reigned. Samsung’s stripped-down Galaxy S20 Fan Edition and Google’s Pixel 5, for example, are $700—$50 less than the new OnePlus 8T. I used to wonder how OnePlus phones were priced so affordably. I don’t feel that sense of amazement anymore.
OnePlus is also competing with itself. It used to only sell one device at a time but now you can buy phones that came before at discounted prices. That puts the new OnePlus 8T in an awkward spot. It hardly adds anything new over the OnePlus 8, but costs $150 more.
