As a small brand in a vast cellular sea, China’s OnePlus, like the Avis commercials of old, tries harder.
Besides active customer interaction through social media and global one-off events, the Oppo affiliate has a penchant for frequent flagship introductions, lately moving to a twice-a-year launch schedule.
See: OnePlus Flagship Gets Five-Month Upgrade
Adding to the strategy is a new event-themed twist, seen last December with the release in India of a Star Wars-branded handset in league with “The Last Jedi.”
This month, OnePlus has dressed up its flagship 5T phone once again, this time in a luxurious Lava Red. Though not the first to offer the palette option (witness the iPhone 7, the Asus Zenfone 2 and LG’s V30 in Raspberry Rose), it is the first to pin it to Valentine’s Day — and enlist actress/model Emily Ratajkowski to hawk it.
The phone, like its original Midnight Black forerunner, features:
- an 18:9 AMOLED display;
- a Snapdragon 835 processor backed with 8GB RAM;
- 128GB of on-board storage;
- a dual 16-megapixel and 20-megapixel camera;
- facial recognition;
- a good ol’ fashioned 3.5mm headphone jack; and
- tons of rave reviews.
Perhaps most of all, in this age of the thousand-dollar smartphone, it carries a direct-sell price point intended to win hearts at $559.
