Why OnePlus Is Wrong About Wireless Charging

The ascendent smartphone maker OnePlus branded itself out of the gate with its “Never Settle” slogan, but that might not have been a great idea in hindsight. Like Google’s “Don’t be evil” motto, the internet delights in pointing out when the company strays from its stated goal. Most recently, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau suggested OnePlus isn’t planning to include wireless charging in the upcoming OnePlus 7. Never Settle, indeed? This is a mistake because even with wireless charging shortcomings, it’s something consumers want.

Wireless charging isn’t 100 percent confirmed to be missing on the OnePlus 7, but Lau certainly made it sound that way in a recent interview. According to Lau, wireless charging is inferior to the company’s Warp Charge standard. OnePlus wants to make wireless charging faster without increasing heat production, but it hasn’t found a way to do that yet.

OnePlus as a company is obsessed with speed as its defining trait. Its phones always have the latest hardware, they perform well, charge quickly, and it even releases phones at a breakneck pace every five to six months. In this case, that’s the wrong way to evaluate the usefulness of wireless charging.

If you used wireless charging back when it was first popular, you probably didn’t love the experience. Phones in 2012 and 2013 with wireless charging would fill at 5 watts if you were lucky. That was slow enough to be almost useless. Fast charging at 15W or higher just made more sense. With newer wireless charging, you get at least 10W on most phones, and some go as high as 15W.

Wireless charging isn’t as fast as wired charging, but it can be more convenient. You can have a charging pad at your desk or next to the bed and just drop your phone on it. There’s no fiddling with the plug or accidentally knocking the phone down when your foot gets tangled in the cable. That’s the value of wireless charging — it’s not an either/or situation.

The trend toward metal phones made wireless charging a non-issue for years, but glass makes wireless charging possible again, and OnePlus’ phones are glass. Still, they don’t have wireless charging. People have come to expect premium phones to have this feature — like it or not, you can thank Apple for that. Samsung, LG, Google, and others all have wireless charging. It sounds more like OnePlus controlling costs than genuinely believing the technology isn’t good enough.

OnePlus raises prices a bit each time it launches a phone, and the cost is getting close to regular flagship phone territory. It can’t keep cutting corners on features like wireless charging. It did the same thing with NFC in the OnePlus 2, and the backlash was fierce. You have to give the people what they want.

Continue reading

How to Be a Task Manager Wizard, According to the Guy Who Wrote It

The author of the original Windows Task Manager has some tips on how to use it more effectively, including a few we'd never heard of — and one we tossed in ourselves if you have trouble with Task Manager getting stuck behind fullscreen-stealing windows.

RISC vs. CISC Is the Wrong Lens for Comparing Modern x86, ARM CPUs

Try to investigate the differences between the x86 and ARM processor families (or x86 and the Apple M1), and you'll see the acronyms CISC and RISC. It's a common way to frame the discussion, but not a very useful one. Today, "RISC versus CISC" obscures more than it explains.

I Wrote the First Full Review of the Voodoo 5 6000. 3dfx Isn’t Coming Back [Updated]

Nearly 20 years ago, I wrote the first review of the Voodoo 5 6000. As much as I loved 3dfx, I don't think this is the company to resurrect it.

GPU Pricing, Availability Are Moving in the Wrong Direction

GPU prices are moving again, but not in the direction we'd prefer.