The new, Oppo-fied OnePlus has sent out a clear message: China comes first. The company launched its OnePlus 10 Pro phone last night, but only for China, with launches in the rest of the world vaguely slated for "later in 2022."
As revealed last week, the OnePlus 10 Pro is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1-powered phone with a 6.7-inch, quad-HD 120Hz LTPO screen and 80-watt wired charging. It has three main Hasselblad-tuned cameras at 48MP (main), 50MP (ultra-wide, including 150-degree and fish-eye modes) and 8MP (telephoto), as well as a 32MP front camera. It comes in dark green and black.
The phone goes on sale on Jan. 13 in China, but the press release we received doesn't have a price listed. OnePlus is really playing up camera quality with this model, emphasizing the Hasselblad tuning and releasing images taken by professional photographers for the launch. Unfortunately, there's no word about a less-expensive non-Pro version of the phone yet.
Less Global, More Local
The OnePlus 10 Pro could be the first Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 phone in the US, but it looks like OnePlus will probably miss that window. The Samsung Galaxy S22 announcement is rumored to be happening on Feb. 8.
Android Central goes into more detail on OnePlus's new focus on China in a great piece which quotes several smart analysts. Chinese New Year, this year on Feb. 1, is a major sales time for phones there, and several other brands (including OnePlus's cousin Realme) are all releasing Sanpdragon 8 Gen 1 phones now.
The China version will also run Oppo's ColorOS Android skin, as opposed to OnePlus's OxygenOS; the global software may not be complete yet. OnePlus's initial rollout of OxygenOS 12 to the OnePlus 9 series was so buggy it had to be removed from the market.
Still though, I must disagree with the analysts quoted in Android Central's piece, who generally conclude that the China-first launch won't affect OnePlus's global fortunes. OnePlus's whole pitch used to be that it was a global brand based in China. The company's new strategy is turning it into more of a Chinese company which sells phones globally. Those are very different tones.
It's understandable why a Chinese firm would find it hard to collaborate and work globally over the past few years. During the first years of OnePlus's existence, its executives constantly jetted around the world rather than staying holed up in Shenzhen.
However, for the past two years, China has practically sealed itself off from the rest of the world in an attempt to prevent COVID from coming in, as well as preventing staff from moving freely across borders. That makes the idea of a "global firm based in China" a lot less easy to implement.
We'll see how OnePlus pitches the 10 Pro when it launches it in the rest of the world, whenever that is.