OnePlus is one of my favorite phone makers, and I was very excited when the OnePlus 13T was announced earlier this month. But that excitement soon got crushed when the company confirmed that this phone is not coming to Europe or the U.S., a tragic decision.
For one, the OnePlus 13T has a unique feature set that I know I’d at least like to try. The OnePlus 13T is a small body, 6.3-inch phone with one fewer camera than a typical flagship phone. But it still contains a top-tier Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset and a battery that’s larger than many full-sized Android flagship phones.
The 13T also shakes up a staple OnePlus feature by swapping the alert slider for a rebindable shortcut key, something we saw on the related Oppo Find X8 series but not on a OnePlus phone before now.
The full-size OnePlus 13 is still a strong pick for anyone looking for one of the best Android phones, and is widely available. But small phones are getting less and less common, especially in the Android half of the smartphone world, so having another option that isn’t an expensive foldable phone would be excellent for buyer choice.
Yet for whatever reason, OnePlus has decided to keep the OnePlus 13T for China and India only, albeit while acknowledging the interest from other regions.
Two annoying announcements in three months
This is the second of two unfortunate announcements from OnePlus this year, after it confirmed that there is no OnePlus Open 2 coming in 2025. My colleague Philip Michaels has already lamented this decision, but I’ve got to do so as well.
Again, the current OnePlus Open is fantastic, and still the top of our best foldable phones guide almost two years after it first launched.
But without upgraded hardware, or even just a reset on the timer for OnePlus’ promised Android updates, OnePlus can’t stay at the top of the pile when Samsung, Motorola and Google continue to launch yearly upgrades for their foldables.
We need this, OnePlus!
OnePlus sits in a strange spot in the smartphone ecosystem here in the west. It makes products on par with Samsung, Google and Motorola, and is one of the only remaining Chinese phone brands willing or able to do business in the U.S. This makes it a key competitor to these more established brands, especially with its tendency to undercut them on price while matching or beating them on specs.
But OnePlus still prioritizes its larger markets — China and India — with more and more varied devices. There’s also OnePlus’ relationship with Oppo, which complicates things.
Oppo, while not active in North America, is trying to crack the European market with near-identical products. The two companies don’t want to cannibalize each other’s possible market share, which could be a reason why we’re not seeing the full breadth of OnePlus’s offerings even here in the U.K.
I can only hope OnePlus sticks to its word and looks carefully at public demand for the OnePlus 13T. And that it doesn’t plan on waiting too much longer to bring us the Open 2.
Competition in the smartphone world is as vital as ever to have, as increasing prices and limited hardware upgrades mean users deserve the best value possible. So if you agree, make sure to let OnePlus know how you feel and hit us up in the comments below.
