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Without a doubt, the OnePlus 7 Pro is the best smartphone that we’ve seen from the company to date. A huge, beautiful, and smooth display, combined with the latest chipset from Qualcomm, and a triple camera to boot, all inside of a smartphone priced just under $700. What’s not to love?
But could the company have hit its peak with the OnePlus 7 Pro? Because it’s starting to look that way.
At a price of $669, the OnePlus 7 Pro is by no means a budget handset. At the same time, the budget segment has kind of been one of the main factors that OnePlus’ success is predicated upon. The OnePlus One, the phone that started it all, is an excellent example, where at $299, it was an outright steal compared to other phones at that time that were priced at least twice that amount.
But as we have seen over the years, the price of OnePlus smartphones have increased steadily, where the OnePlus 7 Pro is the company’s most expensive handset to date and is an increase of over $100 from its predecessor, the OnePlus 6T.
Not to say that it’s not worth it (it is), but we imagine that moving forwards with each future release, OnePlus prices will probably get to the point where it will be similar to what other companies, such as Samsung, are charging.
The phone is also at an awkward crossroads, where it is still cheap enough to be considered, but at the same time more expensive than some of the alternatives out there like the upcoming Honor 20, the Honor View 20, and the recently launched ASUS Zenfone 6.
This means that OnePlus is in danger of entering territory controlled by more established players with vast resources who can afford to build multiple smartphones that cover the entire pricing spectrum. After all, there is a very good reason why Samsung is still holding the position of the world’s largest smartphone company. This also means that upon entering that pricing territory, customers will need to consider other factors (besides price) when trying to decide between a OnePlus handset, a Samsung phone, or a Google Pixel device.
Perhaps this has been OnePlus’ goal all along, to lure customers in with its cheap and value-for-money handsets, build up a loyal following, and then lock them in with future devices. It has worked out for companies such as Apple and Samsung, where despite their outrageous prices, brand loyalty has resulted in customers continuously purchasing their smartphones year after year.
That being said, we don’t think that OnePlus has hit its peak yet, but as we have pointed out, they are getting dangerously close. We think that the company could probably survive one or two more price hikes before customers start paying more attention to the details and looking at alternatives, but hopefully, by then, OnePlus will have reached a point where they’ll be able to justify its price.
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