How a $300 phone became the most highly coveted Android device of 2014

Published Jul 17, 2026, 1:28 PM EDT Ismar is a Senior Author at How-To Geek. He previously worked as a writer, editor, and general manager at a content agency before joining the team in 2023. He began his writing career in 2021 after completing a BA in English Language and Literature. Beyond How-To Geek, Ismar has contributed to Red Stag Fulfillment and Authority Hacker. He has also worked on various SEO projects to help clients improve their search visibility. Ismar has been around Windows PCs since the age of three, so friends and family naturally chose him as the resident tech support. His projects often involve tinkering, such as disassembling mechanical keyboards and gaming mice to mod his beloved gear. He also enjoys pushing hardware to the max through overclocking while staying on a reasonable budget. An avid gamer, Ismar has logged thousands of hours across various genres, including first-person shooters, RPGs, racing games, and roguelites. When he is not at his desk, he is probably exploring other people’s phones to discover their quirks and features or experimenting with the latest AI tools. In his free time, Ismar enjoys spending time with his wife, working out at the gym, playing guitar and bass, cooking gourmet meals, and traveling. Above all else, he’s a proud cat owner. Back in the day, Android phones were a lot more daring. Companies experimented with all kinds of wild designs, features, and even pricing. Among all the phones that tried to stand out over the past decade, one captured the enthusiast fanbase like no other: the coveted OnePlus One. Today, OnePlus is exiting the U.S. and European markets, but its legacy is evident when looking at the Android ecosystem as a whole. And the legendary OnePlus One is the lynchpin of that legacy. The OnePlus One broke every rule and still succeeded It's easy to forget just how groundbreaking this phone was Credit: OnePlus If you weren't around when it happened, it's almost impossible to describe just how hyped the OnePlus One was when it was first announced to the public in April 2014. The phone launched with a very simple premise—flagship-level specs at a mid-range price. Back when phones like the Samsung Galaxy S5, HTC One M8, and LG G3 dominated the market in the $600 to $700 range, the OnePlus One launched at just $299. While carrier prices for those other flagships were lower (often around $200), you could pay a little extra and get a fully unlocked phone without being tied to a contract. Even that's only part of the price story. The $299 price was for the 16GB variant, whereas the more desirable 64GB model was only $50 more at $349. That was practically unheard of, as other brands typically charged closer to $100 for a similar storage bump—for example, from 16GB to 32GB. To keep costs this low, OnePlus obviously had to cut some corners. The phone lacked certain advanced features and gimmicks, like the HTC One M8's stereo speakers, the LG G3's 1440p display, or the Samsung Galaxy S5's IP67 dust and water resistance, made possible by that annoying port cover. The cameras weren't exceptional, either. The main camera was serviceable but a tier below the flagships—a trend that seems to persist in OnePlus phones to this day. There were a few other small things, like the lack of a microSD card slot, a non-removable back cover, limited LTE bands, and weak customer support, but when you saw the specs you got for the price, it all made sense. Flagship specs for half the price A true "Flagship Killer" Credit: OnePlus | Internet Archive The phone's real selling points were the Snapdragon 801 SoC paired with 3GB of RAM, a solid 1080p display, and a respectable 3,100mAh battery. Compared with the Galaxy S5’s measly 2GB of RAM and smaller 2,800mAh battery in a phone that costs twice as much, it was easy to see why the OnePlus One quickly became a no-brainer for enthusiasts. This might sound crazy, but the hardware and price were only part of the story—the OnePlus One featured one of the best near-stock Android experiences of all time. To be more specific, it launched with the famous Cyanogen OS preinstalled (and even had a "Cyanogen" logo in the back). You might remember that back in the day, Samsung had that horrible TouchWiz UI and came loaded with bloatware. Other vendors weren’t much better, and this was often a point of contention among enthusiasts. Cyanogen on the OnePlus One was made possible thanks to a partnership between OnePlus and Cyanogen. It was Cyanogen's attempt to commercialize the popular CyanogenMod ROM that many enthusiasts (including yours truly) would install on their Samsungs, HTCs, and other phones to improve the software experience. This is something you didn't have to do with the OnePlus One, though, as it already had some of the cleanest, fastest, and most reliable software in the world. It was notoriously difficult to get your hands on You basically had to win a lottery Credit: OnePlus | Internet Archive If you've never seen a OnePlus One in person, there's a good reason for that—the phone was almost impossible to get your hands on. It was sold through an invite-only system on OnePlus's website, as demand far outpaced production. If you wanted to buy one, you first had to secure an invitation code. This created a ton of hype online, which was fueled even further by the disastrous "Smash the Past" campaign. The promotion involved smashing your current (decent) phone to get a new OnePlus One for $1. Thousands of people misunderstood the campaign and smashed their phones in hopes of receiving a free OnePlus before the event even started, and before anyone had actually been selected. Granted, this happened because people didn’t read the fine print, but even if everything had gone according to plan, it still created a lot of e-waste, something people were rightfully unhappy about. The invite-only system stayed until the launch of the OnePlus 3, by which point OnePlus was hardly the same company anymore. The phone made "Flagship Killers" a thing A change that benefitted every Android brand Credit: Vivo / Realme / Xiaomi / Oppo / Huawei The term "flagship killer" wasn’t just a nickname for the OnePlus One—it was heavily marketed as such. The label was popularized by both reviewers and the company itself, and OnePlus continued calling its phones flagship killers for years to come. In fact, the OnePlus One is widely credited with making the flagship killer concept itself mainstream. What followed were numerous other phones from brands like Xiaomi’s Poco line, which followed the same idea of delivering flagship-level specs at aggressive prices. The term still comes up here and there, though its definition has shifted and evolved over time. We'll never see a phone like the OnePlus One again The OnePlus One was released in a completely different era. Back then, startups could launch a phone with flagship specs at half the price and still make a profit. However, as technology has evolved, phones have become much more complex and expensive to produce. For instance, the Samsung Galaxy S25 launched at an MSRP of $800—and that’s with Samsung leveraging massive discounts thanks to scale, as well as producing several of its own components, including displays and memory/storage. A small brand like Nothing, for example, can't deliver the same level of performance, display, and other specs while also cutting costs in half and maintaining a healthy profit margin. Credit: Gavin Phillips / How-To Geek That’s why OnePlus slowly shifted in a completely different direction: releasing the most absurdly powerful phone they could while pricing it just below the top models like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra to stay profitable. The OnePlus 15 launched in 2025 with a starting price of $900, but its spec sheet was absurd: it was one of the first phones with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC, it packed a maximum 16GB of RAM, rocked a 165Hz display, a 7,300mAh battery, 100W fast charging, IP69K water and dust resistance, and a long list of other features that real enthusiasts cared about. Goodbye, OnePlus Unfortunately, OnePlus' slow pivot from "Flagship Killer" to "niche high-end phone brand" didn't pan out. The company's devices failed to secure a foothold in the market, leaving the OnePlus 15 and 15R as the last OnePlus smartphones to grace the U.S. and Europe. It appears that name recognition, a strong marketing marketing, and carrier relationships are more important than specs alone. OnePlus failed to learn the lesson that it taught so many other Android brands—a good phone can't sell itself.