By Akriti Rana and Nimish Dubey
OnePlus has literally lived up to its Never Settle motto. When the company started out in 2014, it was all about delivering a flagship-level experience at a surprisingly affordable price. A few years later, it moved up the price levels to join the very premium flagships it looked to kill. Then in 2020, it got right back into a more affordable zone with the Nord series. Even as all this was happening, the brand was also coming out with televisions, true wireless stereo (TWS) earphones, smartwatches, and more.
Over the past year or so, it seems that OnePlus has turned its attention to what has always been considered a niche segment. We are talking about gaming phones.
If it's a gaming phone, it should look like a gaming phone
Gaming phones have had a bit of a chequered history. They first made headlines in 2003 when Nokia released the N-Gage, which was perhaps the first high-profile phone dedicated to gaming. Other brands have since made notable efforts — Sony brought out the Xperia Play phone in 2011 and there were a few brands that came out with phones that support motion-sensing gaming through their front cameras. However, by and large, the gaming segment has remained a tiny and not very profitable niche. Perhaps the biggest reason for this has been the general perception that gamers have different needs, mostly requiring a high-end gear, generally seen in the case of PC and console gaming.
This is perhaps why most gaming phones tend to be very different from mainstream phones, in terms of design and function. Yes, the innards of Asus' ROG series of phones might be very similar to what you would get on something like a Samsung Galaxy S22+, but the exterior would be totally different. Gaming phones, like gaming PCs and notebooks, have tended to come with more external bells and whistles, including flashing colourful lights, external cooling fans, special ports and charging points, and so on. The idea of a gaming phone conventionally has been to let the world know, "I have a gaming phone," loud and proud. For this reason, they also generally have slightly premium price tags. The template for gaming phones generally has been: cutting-edge hardware, standout loud (and slightly bulky) designs, and hefty price tags.
OnePlus R series: Showcasing gaming without looking like a typical gaming phone
OnePlus is looking to change the gaming phone template with its R-series phones. The brand introduced the lineup with the OnePlus 9R in 2021, followed it up with the OnePlus 9RT in 2022, and has recently come out with the OnePlus 10R. While each of these phones has been showcased as a gaming device, none of them follows the conventional gaming phone template. All three sport smart designs, but definitely have no "gamer" look about them. All three also have good hardware, but it is not of the cutting-edge sort that you get in many gaming phones.
In fact, none of the three R-series handsets have even come with the fastest processor around (the OnePlus 9R ran sports a Snapdragon 870 SoC, the OnePlus 9RT sports Snapdragon 888, and the OnePlus 10R features MediaTek Dimensity 8100). They are all impressive performers but aren’t really record-breaking or benchmark-busting devices, which most gaming phones claim to be. Interestingly, even though its other flagships such as the OnePlus 10 Pro and OnePlus 9 Pro might handle games as well, OnePlus has been marketing its R series as being good for gaming. The R series is also the most affordable among OnePlus' flagship series of devices, often priced well below gaming phones and close to budget flagships.
The R-series approach to gaming is also rather different from conventional gaming phones. Apart from good processors, OnePlus has equipped the series with good displays with high refresh rates and extremely high touch response rates to enable super responsive gaming. The just-released OnePlus 10R has a 1,000Hz response rate. The phones also come with gamer-friendly features like stereo speakers, a special gaming engine (what OnePlus calls the HyperBoost Gaming Engine) to ensure fewer frame drops, good haptics, good cooling capabilities, and extremely fast charging.
The point to note, however, is that devices like the OnePlus 9RT and OnePlus 10R are designed to give a very good gaming experience rather than the "very best" gaming experience around. They are targeting consumers who play a lot of games, rather than the tiny niche who take gaming very seriously or participate in gaming tournaments. While a OnePlus R-series handset might not have the fastest processor or a display with the highest resolution around, its phones will still come with a chip and other hardware that is more than capable of handling high-end gaming comfortably. It is designed to play games very well, rather than help you win gaming tournaments.
Focussing on mainstream gamers, rather than hardcore ones
The OnePlus R series ticks most gaming phone boxes: high refresh-rate display, high touch response, stereo speakers, fast processor, great cooling, good vibration motors, a fast-charging battery, and so on. But it does so without going after the "extreme" levels that most gaming phones try to attain. A Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor on the OnePlus 9RT or the MediaTek Dimensity 8100 chip on the onePlus 10R, for instance, might not play Call of Duty: Mobile as well as a Snapdragon 8 Generation 1 or Snapdragon 888+ chip found in many gaming phones, but the difference in performance would be noticeable only if you were looking for it. Professional gamers should be able to spot it, but most mainstream users might not even notice it.
It is these mainstream users that the OnePlus R series seems targeted at. While gaming phones are gunning for hardcore gamers, OnePlus seems to be aiming its R series more at gamers who play just for entertainment and the occasional adrenaline rush. They do not need their phones to advertise their commitment to gaming and are very content with just a smart-looking, easy-to-use phone that can play games very well. Interestingly, the number of these relatively less-serious (but not "casual gamers") gamers is actually much larger than the hardcore gaming segment. Games like Call of Duty: Mobile and Battlegrounds Mobile India might have millions of players, but not all of them are using or even have the need to use the absolute top-of-the-line hardware for what they would call a good gaming experience. Devices like the OnePlus 10R and OnePlus 9RT are tailormade for them.
The fact that R-series phones come with lower price tags than most gaming phones also helps their cause. The OnePlus 10R can deliver a very good gaming experience for under Rs 40,000, which is well below the starting price of the latest ASUS ROG and is actually on par with a budget flagship device (like the Xiaomi 11T Pro), which might have better specs but is not projected as "gaming-friendly." What's more, unlike many gaming phones which tend to stumble in other departments such as ease of use (thanks to their bulk), battery life, and photography, the OnePlus R series is a phone that actually does gaming very well, without cutting any general phone-performance corners.
There is more to come on the R front (maybe even a game store!)
This is evidently just the beginning of OnePlus' gaming plans. As per some sources, OnePlus is also looking at gradually adding exclusive game titles to its R series. Initially, these tie-ups are expected to let users play games that have not been released on other devices for a period of time (expected to be 60-90 days). But in the long run, the R series might come with its own special titles or variants of popular titles (a bit like the "+" series of titles on Apple Arcade). It is a path OnePlus had tried walking on earlier when it tied up with Epic Games for a very different Fortnite experience on the OnePlus 8 Pro in 2020. That experiment was not very successful, but at that time, OnePlus' attention seemed to be more focussed on showcasing a faster refresh rate on its displays, rather than on gaming itself. This time, it would be looking at getting an exclusive game library for its R series.
OnePlus might even have a special game store for the R series. And if what we hear is true, the R series is expected to get its own community online, with special benefits and perks, a bit like the Red Cable Club for OnePlus users. OnePlus considers the R series to be special, and it can be gauged from the fact that it made its traditional 'T' update later in the year to the 9R, and not the OnePlus 9, as many had expected.
All of which seem to indicate that OnePlus has mobile gaming very much in its sights for the coming days. The brand is adopting the same strategy that it employed for premium flagships in its initial days — giving users well-crafted, smooth-performing devices with impressive specs at much lower prices. OnePlus was a flagship killer then, and it seems to be looking to become a gaming-phone killer now. These are early days, of course, but given OnePlus' track record of disruption, we would not be surprised to see gaming phones undergo a sea change in the coming days. We do not think consumers would mind one bit.