OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro Finally Hit US Shelves
OnePlus's Snapdragon 865 flagships go on sale in the US today, starting at $699 and $899.
Two weeks after their April 14 unveiling, the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro are officially available for purchase in the United States as of today. The base OnePlus 8 starts at $699, while the 8 Pro steps up to $899. Both phones run on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 chipset, putting them squarely in the same performance tier as the current crop of flagships from Samsung and others.
This is notable mostly because it’s a return to form for OnePlus. The company built its reputation on “flagship killer” pricing, and while $699-$899 is a far cry from the sub-$400 devices that first put OnePlus on the map, these prices are still meaningfully lower than what Samsung and Apple charge for comparable hardware. Whether that gap is wide enough to matter anymore is a fair question — OnePlus has been creeping upmarket for a few years now.
What you’re actually buying
The Snapdragon 865 is the headline spec, and it’s the same silicon powering most of this year’s Android flagships, so raw performance shouldn’t be a differentiator between OnePlus and its rivals. Where OnePlus has historically tried to stand out is software polish (OxygenOS has a good reputation for staying close to stock Android while adding useful extras) and value — packing flagship internals into a phone that costs less than the competition.
The Pro model, at $899, is clearly positioned as the halo device, and the $200 gap between it and the standard 8 suggests OnePlus is drawing a sharper line between its two tiers than it has in some past generations. That’s consistent with a broader industry trend of splitting flagship lineups into “regular” and “pro/ultra” tiers rather than shipping one do-it-all phone.
Timing is everything, and this timing is rough
It’s worth noting the context: this launch is happening in the middle of a global pandemic, with much of the US still under stay-at-home orders in late April 2020. Physical retail for a phone launch just doesn’t mean much right now — this is an online-only rollout by necessity, not choice. Whether that dampens demand or barely matters (people are stuck at home with their phones more than ever, after all) is genuinely unclear.
For anyone due for an upgrade and comfortable buying sight-unseen, $699 for a Snapdragon 865 device is a reasonable price point in 2020’s flagship landscape. I’d want to see how battery life and camera performance shake out in real-world use before crowning a winner, but on paper this is a competitive launch. More as reviews and real-world impressions roll in.