OnePlus has announced on its official forum that the OnePlus TV will arrive in September.
India will be the first market where the TV will launch and will be available via Amazon.in.
OnePlus will launch its TV in other markets as well, including North America, Europe and China.
Those looking forward to the OnePlus TV, there is some good news for you. The company has announced that the TV will launch in September and India will be the first market to get the TV. On its official forum, the company has said, “And now, I have a very exciting announcement to share with you – the OnePlus TV is set to launch in September, and it will be available in India first. Over the past 6 years, we have achieved great success in India in large part because of our passionate and supportive community. Even after all these years, we’re excited to explore exciting new opportunities hand-in-hand with you. The OnePlus TV is such an important product for all of us, and we can’t wait to see it in living rooms all over India”.
India has been a big market for OnePlus even before the company officially entered India. On multiple occasions, OnePlus has highlighted how India already had a base of OnePlus One users even though the brand had not officially entered India. Needless to say, the company has seen tremendous success with its products. OnePlus devices have been available on Amazon.in since the company entered India and OnePlus has confirmed that the TV will also be available via Amazon.in
The OnePlus Forum goes on to say, “We all know, “content is king,” which remains one of the major reasons for television's continued relevance in our lives. Yet, the content ecosystem is quite different from one country to another. We have always had a very positive relationship with content providers in India, who have always been willing to partner with us, which guarantees great content for our users.”
Keeping content at the centre of the UI isn't something new. Xiaomi has been doing this with the TVs they launched in India. The Xiaomi TVs run on the Android TV UI and also come with their own UI called PatchWall. The UI puts content in front and the service provider showing off that content is in the background. We have seen a similar UI experience on the Apple TV. However, services like Netflix are absent from this form of presentation of content.
In the past few months, India has seen the release of a number of TVs from new as well as established brands. We have seen the likes of Thomson, Kodak, Shinco, Daiwa and many more make TVs in India catering to the budget user. We have also seen brands like TCL, iFFALCON and Metz launch budget Android TVs in India at competitive pricing.
The TV market in India is flourishing and consumers have a lot of options to choose from. We haven't even mentioned the big four yet – Sony, Samsung, LG and Panasonic.
It looks like OnePlus understands the competition they will face in India. On the forum, the company says, “Launching a TV product is not easy, especially if we had to start this project from scratch. Over the past two years, we have been working relentlessly to make our dreams and vision come true, so the fact that we are finally able to share this product with you all is incredibly meaningful to all of us here. We want to be sure of every step we take, which is why we wanted to focus on one market at a time. Without being 100% focused, we would not be able to create continued success.”
The forum post, which is written by OnePlus founder and CEO Pete Lau, goes on to highlight how the TV will be an integral part of the IoT and interconnected world we are moving towards. Needless to say, we think the TV will bring with it IoT enabled features we have seen on flagship TVs from Sony, Samsung, LG and more. Sony’s Flagship 2019 OLED TV, the A9G can be switched on and off using only your voice, provided the TV is in standby mode, which is pretty cool.
One of the problems with budget smart TVs is that even though they run on Android TV, some of them lack services like Netflix, or Amazon Prime or Both and need a workaround to make these services work. OnePlus will need to work at bringing not only stellar picture quality for the price but also a seamless smart experience that distinguishes its product from the crowd. What these features will be is something only time will tell.
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Sameer Mitha
Sameer Mitha lives for gaming and technology is his muse. When he isn’t busy playing with gadgets or video games he delves into the world of fantasy novels. View Full Profile
