When the OnePlus One came out in 2014, I was a huge fan, not only of the phone but also of OnePlus itself. I stayed a fan all the way through 2019 with the launch of what I consider the company’s peak, the OnePlus 7 Pro, a phone I waxed lyrical about here at Android Authority whenever I was allowed. In 2020, with the launch of the OnePlus 8 series, I lost interest and moved on. Since then, nothing OnePlus has done has enticed me back — in fact, I would say most of what it’s done has pushed me further away.
Fast-forward a few years, and the OnePlus 12 is now available for everyone to buy. Obviously, it is quite different from the OnePlus 7 Pro and certainly much different from the OnePlus One. A lot has changed in ten years, after all. As an experiment, I used the OnePlus 12 alongside the OnePlus One and made the video you see above. I came away surprised with how much I missed the early days of OnePlus. Not just because of the phones but also because of how OnePlus used to make me feel. I realized I hadn’t felt that way in a long, long time.