Dear Oppo ... you blew it

You guys have dropped the ball and the market is now kicking you in the nuts, just as you probably deserve. Huawei is overtaking you and will eventually relegate you to a minor player ... and guess what ... ?

Its all your fault and many people gave you warnings.

Now up front I want to say the following; I bought my first Oppo (the F1) in 2016 and the overwhelming experience with that phone was (and indeed remains) good.

Its a great phone and I love it.

I would say you can count at least 5 sales (that I personally know of) due to my praise and demonstration of that phone to friends.

We all liked that it was slim, light and had a great screen. Indeed over the years many have commented when I hand them the phone that "this is a great phone, not so insanely big like most now" (keep that in mind).

The F1 came behind some great phones of yours like the Find 7 and the N1; these were outstanding phones back when you were first establishing your market. Its not insignificant that you offered technically excellent phones and attracted a market of technically minded users. The phones you offered have always had great hardware and well priced for their technical position. Indeed the R11s is no exception, and if judged only on hardware (which is pointless as one can not re-flash a different OS onto it) then its technically the winner of that comparison.

But phones are more than just their hardware.

One of your other strengths is the outstanding after sales service you offer and that you offer regular OTA security patches for the OS as they seem come available (to this day my F1 continues to get them). There are some people who lament that you don't give OS upgrades (for instance stepping up from Android 5.x to 7 or something like that) but I'm not one of them.

I found that the included feature set of Color OS2.1 was great, with good

• battery management, 
• granular internet access at the OS level for Apps, 
• Quiet Time (before it was even available on Android),
• and lots of other good stuff such as a great provided Email Client (one of the best I've used), great Camera App, good file manager, inbuilt FTP access, WiFi Hotspot software, default keyboard ... the list goes on.

Sadly the documentation lacked (or perhaps people just didn't know where to look) and many people (reviewers) were unaware of how good the system was and what it provided (I'm still teaching friends with F1 phones how to use components). This was perhaps forgivable with your targeting technical users and if you'd followed up with operational consistency ... but you didn't.

Its not insignificant that you created a "Brand" based on what attracted the technically inclined who evangelized your product. You gave the technically inclined a good product that was also reasonably attractive to the general users too. Personally I don't mind that your OS (was) slightly simplified (I've used Android since Ginger Bread) and distinctive. Indeed I've only ever had one beef with the F1 and that was the (fucking stupid) decision to make the "recent apps" button on the bottom left a "menu button".  This almost instantly caused me problems because:

1. from the home screen enabled the quick deletion of apps (what were you even thinking)
2. many applications (even in the day) responded to the long press (to get to your most recent apps task switcher) by engagning the menu (and then leaving engaged when you swapped out of it).

It quickly became clearly a stupid idea which there was no way to customise out. So I just adjusted myself around that.

However this brings me to what your problem is: you release new models with a rapidity that prevents you actually fixing problems or even being interested in problems because like:  "buy the new one".

The existing problems with phones are never solved as your continue to roll problems forward and every iteration of your phones since the F1 has been a gradual decline of functionality of software. The result is each iteration of phone distances itself from experienced users and trys to appeal only to the "Selfie Generation" and the shallow end of the user pool.

I believe this is your core mistake, for you could easily have kept the features you had (appealing to the tecnical users) as well as with styling and advertising (and a few beauty filters) entice the other part of the market.

Software

Yes, software, no matter how good your hardware is your product depends on the software, something you seem to forget.

For instance dropping RAW from your camera software essentially took the only spoke in its wheel and broke it. I've written many posts about how useful the RAW mode is (especially in light of using Snapseed to process the images) which can be found on my blog. For instance: this one.

I have avoided many iterations of your phones the R9s debarcle for instance, these should have been a great seller when you look at the spec. Yet you still find these stuck on shelves that no one can sell ... why? Because while the R9s hardware is excellent ... the software sucks and people quickly discovered that and brought it up on forums. Word spread and the phones just weren't popular with anyone other than those who are just sold on exterior.

So despite many posts on forums you could have used to examine and re-evelop, your dopes just ignored it and released another model (leaving buyers in the lurch with a bad taste in their mouth) and still hardly addressed the software issues.

Color OS2.1 was good, but every iteration afterwards saw more and more "issues" of omission and functionality.

People don't forget this stuff. No amount of great hardware or excellent customer service can help with munged up software.

Yesterday I used the Huawei P30 and I was struck by how good it was, little things such as the gallery appy (now fucked up on the R11s I tested and I assume on quite a many phones if not all your range). Gone in newer Oppo phones seems to be the camera roll view ... not to mention swiping is now broken.

What is unforgivable is that these features were there and you have just dropped them. Its almost like each iteration of development team has never used your product and you shun continuity. Continual product evolution is what has made brands like Apple strong ... despite their insane prices. People can rely on things being the same.

Instead you seem to shun continuity and each time reach for the "new buyer" at the expense of keeping the buyer you already had. This is going to give any Oppo Buyer a good reason to go look at the opposition ... stupid marketing.

Now looking at the hardware spec an upgrade to the R11s should be a no brainer, but it is instead a vexing phone which I'll probably dump on eBay. Fantastic hardware, really, but let down by some stupid software decisions which makes leaving my F1 behind a bad idea and a  backward step in more ways than a forward one.

If you haven't already read it take a look at my recent comparison here, it covers some of the issues. However the more I'm using the R11s the worse the omissions become, just as a for-instance here's another downgrade I found: Wi-Fi Hotspot control. On the F1 it was a good basic control center showing you the basic details and also the MAC addresses of who's connected.

This is a great and simple interface and pretty much the basics that anyone who's ever run their home Wireless system (say, from their ADSL or other WLAN) likes, expects and needs. It also allows you to turn off the tap for specific users who connect (say your kids at night) so that they can't use their tablets when they should be sleeping. Simply opening the switch enables access again.

However the R11s has munged that up with a retrograde step instead of taking that forward, in that it now does not even show you who is connected, instead all you see is this:

Virtually useless.

As one who runs my whole home out of my phones internet connection (and this is something I understood was common in your markets like India, SE Asia or China) this backward step is just unforgivable. 

On my older F1 I can actually see when someone who I don't want to be using data has connected, now  I can't.

Unforgivable.

The next thing which I discovered (*but didn't cover in my previous post or video) was that for some insane reason USB OTG now turns itself off in 10 minutes. Why? My F1 has had USB OTG turned on since the day I bought it because I frequently plug in my SD card from my digital camera (or the digital camera directly to be USB Storage) so that I can process the files from my camera (not the phones camera) using my phone. I've had some excellent results this way.

Now its true that I've been heavy handed with the above processing, but note how the clouds do not have red tinge (highlight recovery from the RAW) and the texture available in the statue (HDR). I would crop the file differently for presentation (and get rid of the tourists in the way).

Essentially I loved this ability to access how good a computer the F1 actually was (Eg while in a bar having a beer in Prague). I have written extensively how this has made mobile devices a game changer for photography, and now the stupid R11s makes me dig through a bunch of settings to enable it every fucking time I need to use it.
Settings
 >> Additional Settings
   >> (then invisible off the bottom of the page) OTG Connection.

You have no idea how irritating this is. What moron thought that was a good idea? I would like to enable it and have it stay enabled.

Old saying in Australia: If it ain't broken don't fix it. The feature was already there, but if you (Oppo) had any sense of corporate continuity of product you'd know to keep it. It doesn't require change, it requires continuity.

So a list is in order of the features which were present, but due to incompetence, ignorance or indifference that are now gone OR crippled:

• OTG connection keeps turning off (why?)
• no easy access to data usage stats
• Poor display of WiFi hotspot (no connected users) AND now Wi-Fi hotspot is always irritatingly active at the top of the menu, meaning I'm often finding my ear has activated it leading to:
• Screen ON gestures has gone away, so I now can't lock the screen to prevent misoperation while in a call 
• standard Image browser has reversed direction of scroll AND lost swiping between albums AND lost the camera roll feature
• Quiet Time has lost the count down feature
• Clock has lost its Analog
• SMS has lost many of its features (such as timed send)
• Dark themes for applications like Compass make it impossible to see outside in daylight (so setting a different theme would be handy)
• Desktop icons are ONLY auto-arrange (so I can't pick my arrangement)
• Screensnapshot no longer appears directly to be used in the pull down blind (so using it is more of a pain in the arse than it was
• Music player now only shows a list, not the grid (so with more albums its harder to see them)
• No default email app (which was a great app by the way)
• Weather App no longer shows location

That's just what comes to mind immediately. Bullshit which would not have happened if you (Oppo) had just followed any sort of corporate consistency (and an introduction of new features rather than just madness)

Sure I get that 90% of people out there don't all make use of these, but then those 90% often listen to their technically savvy friends advises on phones, ones who they know and trust (and this friend will not be saying "get the Oppo" any more ... ).

As I said, I'm certain you got 5 sales of the F1 directly from my advice. I can't say that now.

Where to now?

Personally I don't know where you Oppo will choose to go from here, I hope its not further downhill. But I'm going to skip another generation of your phones because of all this stupidity of destroying the key features you once had. Perhaps I'll try again later ... who knows. I may indeed try your sister company the OnePlus brand, but its a pity that you've ruined your name and become synonymous with just a good looking but dumb blond who has quirks you can't live with.

This is not just my view either, as you will find internet influencers (like Martin at Tech Altar who was once a consultant for you). I'm sure you've seen some of his works.

Here he writes a good review of your work and what you were doing right.



For those on a phone, use this link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDC2Z3eYOiM)
Myself I don't care about the bezel fascination, as in reality its just Kiddies who get off on that.

However as I've said its gone down from there ... notice the Expert Mode, which even he seems to have missed the powerful feature of separating the focus point from the metering which I have discussed on my blog here. Interestingly that post has been in my top 10 weekly posts for years now (hint: that means its a popular feature). Sadly its been munged up too on the R11s

and then this one:



... or this link if you're on a phone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJgTKx-rg18

Which explains what has happened to you Oppo ... essentially a long game of bait and switch for anyone who didn't get on board with an earlier model (and then just keep it).

So its not like nobody told you.

I have yet to try Color OS 5.x and I hope that many of these fuctional retrograde steps are not present there. I've really liked your phones in the past I genuinely hope you pull your head out of the place it currently is and re-invent yourselves ... perhaps a visit to your own history would help?

I would love to be able to buy a phone as good as my F1 again from Oppo, because your support and service is excellent, you fully deserve the Canstar rating you got. But it may just be that will never happen, because increasingly your phones have such lacking software and you're so lost that maybe you'll never find your way again. After all if such "non cutting edge" can achieve so much in my F1 still why can't you make the same for the $500 price point again?

Either way the F1 has been a killer phone and thanks for that.

Best Wishes