My Story
Today I’m going to share a story about myself, and my journey on how I got so interested in phones and technology. OnePlus is a phone company, and my first phone that I actually picked and bought myself was a OnePlus phone, and it’s what really sparked my interest in software development and phones in general.
The Glory Days
Back when I was still just a teenager, in Jr High going through all the awkward phases of life and becoming a full grown man, smartphones were also in a similar stage of their life. Touch screen phones were a well established thing, but looking back from where we are now phones were still pretty clunky and not super well optimized.
I never really cared about phones, I wanted one, but my parents had initially given me flip or slide phones, which I was content with, and eventually I got an iPod Touch, and finally in 8th grade I got my first smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S3. It was my dad’s old phone as he just upgraded to the S5, and I couldn’t believe I finally had a real smartphone. Of course at that time all I used it for and all I knew how to use it for was to play games like flappy bird or something along those lines.
Then one day my older brother, who always took great care to do his own research before he bought something, told me about this brand new company called OnePlus. He said they came out with a phone that was better than any phone around, and it was priced at half the price of other top of the line phones. It was referred to as a “flagship killer” meaning that it would “kill” all other flagship (top of the line) phones due to it being as good as them for half the price. The phone was called the OnePlus One, being the first, and was priced at $300 brand new, whereas the iPhone 5S and Samsung Galaxy S5, the two top phones of the time, were priced at $650 brand new, and in terms of power and features, the OnePlus One was just as good or better.
My interest was peaked
As my brother told me all that and how cool it was, I was super interested. For the next few months I read and read and read about this phone, it was so popular they had to create an invite system just to get the phone because they couldn’t make enough products for the demand. It was my dream phone, and eventually, after shattering the screen of my S3, bought the phone with my own money in 2015, a year after its launch.
I managed to get the 64 GB edition of the phone for $180 from a guy, and it looked brand new, still in all the packaging and original charger, I bought it at an IHOP. It was the happiest I had ever been as not only did I want the phone, but this was one of my first experiences making a big time purchase which at the time for me $180 was huge. My #1 hobby quickly became reading all about oneplus phones and their software, and I learned a lot from forums about custom software and the ability to customize and change the way your phone runs.
Software Development
I quickly learned how to root an android phone, and how to flash custom rom’s. The Rom or software of your phone is essentially what it is running on. For example iPhones run on what they call iOS, Samsung runs on OneUI, and OnePlus runs on OxygenOS. These are names they give their software to identify it, it includes everything that you do on your phone and how it operates. I quickly became addicted to trying new software’s made by people on the forums to put on my phone, some increased the phones battery life, others added a ton of features, some made the phone faster, and some, when poorly optimized, made the phone slow and have bad battery.
I ended up sticking with my trusty OnePlus One for the rest of my school years, and didn’t get a new phone until the end of 2019, which is when I bought myself a OnePlus 7 Pro. This phone was revolutionary to me, as it was one of the first phones to have a pop-up camera, allowing for the whole front of the phone to be a screen, and a 90 Hertz refresh rate for the screen. This is still one of the only phones to have a full screen with no notch or camera hole, since the camera pops up from the top when you need it. I also got a deal on this one, got it essentially brand new, with 3 cases, 2 chargers, a tempered glass screen protector, and original boxing and cables all for $400. Keep in mind in 2019, a new top of the line phone like that would sell for around $1000.
Now
I still have this phone to this day, and I love it and always loved OnePlus as a company since they seem to take risks, and make phones that aren’t just another basic, general, phone that is essentially the same as all the others. However, since the OnePlus 7 Pro, every phone after from OnePlus has been more and more like an iPhone, or a Samsung, taking away the thing I loved about the company, as well as the prices no longer being a bargain as they also are now selling their phones for $1000. So this will probably be my last phone from OnePlus, however I will always remember the company since it is what brought me into the vast world of software and phones, which is now something I want to base a career off of.
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