A lot of friends of mine have OnePlus for a reason, but I have personally stayed away since the data collection scandal in 2017 (https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/10/11/16457954/oneplus-phones-collecting-sensitive-data). I don't trust Chinese phones in general very much because the government can force data collection very quickly but this is documented behavior by the company. I understand why developers use telemetry but everything but the most basic stuff should be opt in.

Typing this comment on one right now

I used to love them.

I "won" the opportunity to get the OnePlus One.

Was such a great device, I love flashing ROMs on it, even got the bamboo back.

Pretty much every device since the first has been just a slow transition into being your average phone OEM.

They are nothing special anymore.

And now that other OEMs have less crappy skins (and OnePlus' skin got worse) there's really no reason to buy them anymore.

Kinda sad.

They have good hardware, but their software is—or, at least, feels—unreliable. With so many digital interactions virtually expecting to be done from a mobile device these days, the last thing I want is for the phone to glitch and give up on me when I need it. Yes, customization is nice, but these days I value reliability much more than that, even more than performance in some respects. Unfortunately, that mostly leaves Samsung and Apple as options for "reliable" software...

I had a OnePlus 6T and a OnePlus 8T.

OnePlus 6T: had it for 1.5 years and sold it because it had some weird bugs (can't remember exactly which).

OnePlus 8T: had it for almost 2 years. Updated to Android 12, was shit after few weeks. Factory reset to 11, used that a long time. Updated to 12 for a a few days and then to Android 13. Was alright but again a few bugs. Factory reset it again a few (staying on Android 13). Later Factory reset it to Android 11.

I have factory reset it 5 times in 1 the last year i had the OnePlus 8T.

And despite the many factory resets, every few days had a bug where it became so slow it wasn't useable anymore and had to reboot.

Short story: OnePlus had a lot of potential and I bought a OnePlus 6T for the price and the good software support they had in 2018. I feel a little betrayed because they became so worse over the few years I had my OnePlus phones.

I now have a Samsung S23 Ultra which has good software support and yes it has some bloat. But i don't have stupid bugs and the phone stays fast.