We just have to hope that next year's OnePlus 11 (or whatever it gets named) will keep the alert slider on at least one model. But as a result, the breadth of the features available on new smartphones has got a little smaller, and that's not good for potential customers.įortunately for now, anyone wanting a OnePlus flagship with an alert slider can just go for the OnePlus 10 Pro. Removing the alert slider may help OnePlus provide impressive numbers on its specs page. Presumably, OnePlus reckons it'll sell more phones by trying to compete more fiercely on battery and charging specs, but smartphone buyers deserve a wide choice of features when they go shopping.
Taking a wider view though, phones with great battery life and super-fast charging are quite common on the Android side of the smartphone market, while those with alert sliders are not.
When we review the phone, we'll have to weigh up whether the extra speed and longevity were worth removing the slider, or if the improvements are too slight over the OnePlus 10 Pro to justify the change. The company's pivot to focusing on battery capacity and charging speed is arguably a good thing, but the OnePlus 10 Pro already had strong battery life and rapid 80W charging (or a still quick 65W in the U.S.). However, OnePlus is a company that prides itself on being user-focussed, and ditching a well-loved feature that's been on its phones since the beginning doesn't seem like a change its dedicated fans would ask for. It's more that the company's slowly morphed from a quirky upstart phone maker to part of the Android smartphone establishment alongside Samsung and Google.Īs any good therapist or Instagram wellbeing influencer will tell you, change is a natural part of life. The phones haven't necessarily got worse as a result of this, as phones like the OnePlus 10 Pro and the OnePlus Nord 2T prove. Since then, and particularly since OnePlus started launching more and more mid-priced Nord series phones, the company's output has become more generic, with the removal of the alert slider from the OnePlus 10T being the most obvious sign so far of this trend. However, as previous opinions on the state of OnePlus have noted, OnePlus has been on a trajectory towards conventionality for some time, arguably starting with the release of the OnePlus 7 Pro in 2019. It's tempting to lay the blame for the missing alert slider at the feet of Oppo, OnePlus' partner company since 2021.