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China's OnePlus is Going To Start Making TVs (theverge.com)

Posted by msmash on from the further-expansion dept.

Chinese electronics company OnePlus, known for making inexpensive but high-end smartphones, is entering a new line of business: making TVs. From a report: Best known for its phones, China's OnePlus also has a small catalog of really good accessories like wireless earphones and surprisingly awesome backpacks, though nothing as complex or expensive as a television set. In announcing the news on the OnePlus online forums, company chief Pete Lau describes it as "the first step in building a connected human experience." [...] OnePlus has decided to make its entry point into this market the TV itself, which has always been at the center of home entertainment, though often with the help of other connected devices. Reading Lau's teaser announcement, the OnePlus TV -- which so far only has a project name, no timeline or specs have been revealed -- will serve as the connectivity hub for OnePlus' future vision of the smart home.

48 comments

  1. Hell no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apple has not yet iNVENTED the iTV, how does OnePlus dare to iNNOVATE on their own??

    1. Re:Hell no! by sycodon · · Score: 3, Funny

      The TV will report what you watch,how often you watch, and probably has a camera in it with facial recognition and records who is watching, and reports it all back to the government.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    2. Re: Hell no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your cable box does report what is viewed all ready

    3. Re:Hell no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In other news, creimer has started to publish videos for pedophiles on youtube and he brags everywhere on Slashdot about how much success he has with his new gimmick!

      see his posts here:
      https://slashdot.org/comments....
      https://slashdot.org/comments....

      Have you seen creimer's children band video [youtu.be]? Holy shit! That video got hundreds of view [twitter.com] with 95% coming from outside of the United States and the top three nations are well known for sex tourism. It doesn't surprise me that Slashdot has so many pedobears.

      So basically, you are bragging about providing video material to pedophiles and sex tourists and you do not see any problems with it as long as it brings views to your youtube channel.

      Poor Chris, sad, very sad...

      How long will it be before you do the right thing and take that video off line?

    4. Re: Hell no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the issue is that there will now be a second entity collecting this data, and it is likely being sent back to the Chinese government.

    5. Re: Hell no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought facial recognition doesnt work so well in China?

    6. Re: Hell no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh... Apple already has a tv. Which only my previous company IT department bought because CEO=idiot.

    7. Re:Hell no! by lexman098 · · Score: 1

      has a camera in it with facial recognition

      Necessitating a notch

    8. Re:Hell no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can't wait for Apple to claim they invented the TV.

    9. Re:Hell no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Projection much?
      Remember when it came out that Microsoft Kinect did all that just after it was revealed that NSA spied on the population?
      Absolutely nothing have happened that would cause the US government to stop that.

      As for Chinese companies. Well, they probably do it too but will have no real reason to bother with US citizens.

    10. Re: Hell no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes the courage to make the fÃrst TV with a notch Even IF it Will be invented by Apple at a later date

  2. If it's anything like the phones... by lexman098 · · Score: 1

    The TV will ditch the HDMI port in favor of Miracast only and every year it will get a little more expensive.

    1. Re:If it's anything like the phones... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well it doesn't need speakers because 59% of their users have wireless headphones.

  3. Settle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They going to remove standard features from those too?

    1. Re:Settle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're thinking of Samsung. They're the ones who remove features from "Smart" TVs with great regularity.

    2. Re:Settle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They going to remove standard features from those too?

      Probably just speakers because they'll say they compromise the width. You'll have to buy separate Bluetooth speakers.

  4. Wonder if it will require a net connection always by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wonder if this device will be like a modern console and require an Internet connection at all times. No Net, no TV. I also wouldn't be suprised if there was a cellular card in the device as well, just for "analytics" and "telemetry". Oh, ignore the camera and mic... they just set the color temperature and ambient volume, even though they get 5K video perfectly...

  5. HDMI by fluffernutter · · Score: 2

    I can't wait for the TVs to come without HDMI ports.

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  6. How’s that again? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ”Best known for its phones, China's OnePlus also has a small catalog of really good accessories like wireless earphones and surprisingly awesome backpacks, though nothing as complex or expensive as a television set.”

    A smartphone is arguably far more complex than a television set.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:How’s that again? by Gilgaron · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Also pretty easy to find TVs cheaper than high end phones.

  7. Social Score Included? by CodeHog · · Score: 1

    Will buying this improve your social score in China?

    --
    Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
  8. Suicide by StandardCell · · Score: 1

    The TV business has been in a race towards the bottom as far as margins go for more than a decade. Costs are literally down to fractions of pennies in TVs except at the very high end. Even there, costs are a big consideration given retail margins, customer support and future product development.

    Given OnePlus' positioning, this isn't a smart move. They can't possibly compete on cost, and other companies are much better at differentiating their offerings.

    1. Re:Suicide by hey! · · Score: 1

      On the other hand, if you (a) your competition is financially weakened and (b) you think you can produce the product for a little less than they can, it's an opportunity to deal some competitors a death blow.

      That could be valuable because with the build quality of modern TVs they have to be replaced every couple of years. That means that while there isn't growth in the number of TVs installed, there is potential for sales growth if there are fewer players.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    2. Re:Suicide by crow · · Score: 2

      I'm not sure that's true. If you look at a vendor's 4K TVs, for example, you'll find a range of models. (I've been thinking about buying one, so I've been looking.) The cheapest may be sold barely above cost, but the price difference for improved features clearly indicates a healthy profit margin, and I think they do a pretty good job of upselling the value of the better models.

  9. If anything like the phones... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...they will hype it for months, need an invite to buy one, have a very minute amount available for purchase and take months to get one.

  10. Like TCL by crow · · Score: 2

    TCL has made big waves in the US TV market in recent years, so it's not surprising that another company would see an opportunity to move into the market as well. This has been made possible in large part by Amazon, as an electronics company doesn't have to deal with hundreds of electronics chains or dozens of distributors to get their product out. Now they just have to deal with one company.

    1. Re:Like TCL by Paul+Burney · · Score: 1

      Indeed. Up till recently this year, I'd always bought Samsung TVs. But this time I was looking for something I could plug into headphones or an external speaker and Samsung no longer offers that. I picked up a TCL with Roku built-in for a good price and I couldn't be happier. I was one of those "I like my dumb tv thank you very much" people before, but this software interface just works and does it well.

      --
      <?php while ($self != "asleep") { $sheep_count++; } ?>
    2. Re:Like TCL by crow · · Score: 1

      Yup. I haven't bought one yet, but I like what I've seen how it selects different inputs. I just wish it had more connections, as if I have to use a receiver to do the switching, I lose the nice single interface for everything.

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  13. Colour me surprised by illogict · · Score: 2

    One Plus, owned by Oppo (which makes smartphones), owned by BBK Electronics (which makes TV sets), can easily enter this new market?
    Do you say that BBK wants to enter the Western TV market using a well-known brand? Incredible for sure

  14. If OnePlus reads this by Miamicanes · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Some features that would cost little to nothing to add, but would get some people to actively seek them out:

    * Explicit, native support for BOTH 1080p50 and 1080p59.94 (AFAIK, *all* 60fps is REALLY 59.94fps for the sake of backwards-compatibility with NTSC). Seriously, it's 2018. Why the FUCK do we still have TVs sold in America that reject 720p50 and 1080p50 over HDMI, EVEN THOUGH the EXACT SAME GODDAMN HARDWARE (with slightly-tweaked firmware) can do both framerates on TVs sold elsewhere?

    * By extension, explicit native support for both 25fps & 30fps "4k" modes (and ideally, 48, 50, 60, 72, 96, 100, 120, and/or 144, bandwidth permitting). Even if it requires sacrificing color depth (due to HDMI-imposed constraints, and/or PWM-imposed constraints).

    * Ability to natively be driven at 1080p100 and 1080p120 via HDMI2.x. Or better yet, support for AMD FreeSync or NVidia G-sync. I mean, hell... if a TV is "internally" 100/120hz ANYWAY, why the FUCK arbitrarily limit it to 50/60fps HDMI framerate? Expose it directly as supported display modes, and advertise it as a competitive feature nobody else offers. Call competitors' "100/120hz" modes "fake" in your adds, and promote yours as the only REAL "100/120hz"

    * Give us an "instant on" option. Making us wait 5+ seconds for picture & sound after pressing the power button is BULLSHIT. To make HDCP-handshaking happy, keep the link "hot" even when the display is "off" (ie, turn off the LED backlight & LCD itself, but keep the interface powered up & making the HDMI source THINK the TV is "on").

    In other words, the display has four power states:

    1. HDMI on, Display lit up & active

    2. HDMI on, display dark (but HDMI source doesn't know that)

    3. HDMI off, display dark. What most LCD TVs now call "off"

    4. No power. Physically switched off or unplugged.

    I'll pay for the extra quarter-watt of power, dammit. Just don't make me stare at a blank/blue screen for 5 seconds due to HDCP handshaking just to make the eco-freaks happy.

    1. Re:If OnePlus reads this by grumpy-cowboy · · Score: 1

      In addition to your list :

      - No cam
      - No microphone
      - No network connection at all (I'll stream my stuff myself)
      - A shit load of HDMI connectors

      --
      Will $CURRENT_YEAR be the year of the Linux Desktop?
    2. Re:If OnePlus reads this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Making us wait 5+ seconds for picture & sound after pressing the power button is BULLSHIT.

      Geez, is this the first-world problem of the week, or is it not?

    3. Re:If OnePlus reads this by Miamicanes · · Score: 1

      Or at least, if they HAVE to put "smart" functions into the TV for the sake of marketing another feature, at LEAST have the decency to do it in a way that doesn't get in the way of using it as a raw computer monitor with a half-dozen HDMI inputs.

      Also... don't do stupid things like put a 3840x2160 LCD behind a slightly-oversized bezel so the outer 50 pixels are hidden. On my hierarchy of "shitty, stupid things TV manufacturers do", this goes near the top of the list. It makes life absolute HELL for anyone trying to use the TV as a monitor with Windows. If it's a non-negotiable requirement for some reason, at least give us a menu option to have the TV report its REAL, VISIBLE resolution to Windows, so we won't end up having just about every location Windows uses for "important" things end up hidden behind the bezel.

      And please... make sure every meaningful function that's on a menu can be deterministically triggered via the remote control (and HDMI CEC). It's fine to put a single button on the remote that toggles the power state, as long as you include discrete codes that unambiguously mean "turn on" and "turn off" (or, if they listen to my idea about having an intermediate power state that maintains an active HDCP handshake despite the display itself being mostly shut down, discrete codes for "on", "doze", and "off"). Likewise, it's shitty-but-semi-tolerable to have one button on the remote for "input select", as long as there are discrete codes that unambiguously mean, "switch to hdmi{n}, regardless of the display's current state or whether there's even an active signal ON hdmi{n} right now".

    4. Re:If OnePlus reads this by Miamicanes · · Score: 1

      It might be a first-world problem, but it's a BULLSHIT problem that doesn't HAVE to exist, and one example of a way we've literally gone backwards in TV design over the past 50 years.

      1960s: TV had sound within a few seconds, stable picture within 20-30 seconds, correct picture within 50-60 seconds.

      1970s: TV had sound instantly, stable picture within a few seconds.

      1980s: hit the power button, TV has picture and sound before you have time to lift your finger from the button.

      1990s: same, but if you REALLY objected to the TV drawing 5-10 watts when "turned off", you could go into the setup menu and make it act like a 1970s TV again.

      2000s: early CRT HDTVs were like a 1990s CRT TV, but DLP TVs took us back to the 1970s. Nobody noticed HDCP handshaking delay, because the TV itself took even longer for the color wheels to spin up.

      2010s: LCD TVs that now require booting (several seconds) when first plugged in (sometimes, even when "warm-started"), and take several more seconds on top of that to make the HDCP copy protection happy. Time-wise, we're back to the goddamn 1970s.

      I don't object to progress... I just object to having nice things taken away from me. Compromising usability to save 10-20w 24/7 with a CRT (especially one somewhere like a guest bedroom) was one thing... compromising usability to save some tiny fraction of a watt is silly. My central AC draws around 5,000 watts when it's running, and runs about 60-80% of every hour. Compared to that, the 10-50mW a TV might draw to keep its HDMI link 'hot' isn't even on the radar. I probably use a hundred times that much energy keeping all my goddamn devices with embedded lithium batteries eternally recharged so they won't get ruined by battery failure after 6 months of self-draining nonuse.

    5. Re:If OnePlus reads this by LordKronos · · Score: 1

      Also... don't do stupid things like put a 3840x2160 LCD behind a slightly-oversized bezel so the outer 50 pixels are hidden.

      I don't think any manufacturers do this (or at least I've never seen or heard of one). What most TVs do have is an overscan setting (sometimes on by default, sometimes off by default, and sometimes on with no option to disable***) which discards the outermost pixels of the image and stretches the remainder of the pixels across the screen. The reason (or at least one reason) for this was that analog TV signals had data (like closed captions) encoded in the vertical refresh between frames. That data should have (in theory) never been visible, but it wasn't uncommon to see it creep into the top and bottom of the picture. So to solve this, many TVs use overscan to hide this distracting "garbage" so you have a nice, non-distracting image. And really, it has negligible effect when watching TV and movies because no sane producer would put important info that close to the edge knowing many people would never see it. However it is a huge annoyance for any sort of user interface.

      ***some monitors have this "feature" built in too. I've got a Samsung 2494 which does not let you toggle it. It is forced off for DVI and VGA mode, but annoyingly forced on for HDMI mode.

    6. Re:If OnePlus reads this by radarskiy · · Score: 1

      "cost little to nothing to add"

      Existing electronics that provide least common denominator features are produced in incredible volume thus they are amazingly cheap and take zero effort to integrate. Any added features cause a literally infinite percentage increase in effort.

  15. c6gunner IMPERSONATING me again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    c6gunner your FAKEname's on a post impersonating me & worse is you altering /. user's words https://linux.slashdot.org/com... as I challenged you to show you do better work and you can't after you tried to mock me you hypocrite LYING loser https://linux.slashdot.org/com... .

    * You're online FAKENAME trash c6gunner & a childish dishonest punk.

    (PUTTING WORDS IN MY MOUTH TOO saying what I don't (on spectre/meltdown) https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... )

    APK

    P.S.=> Impossible to deny FACT of your FAKEname (for your FAKE wasted lie of a so-called life) on that 1st post link above you unbelievable loser... apk

  16. simply cheap or cheaply simple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This tv will have no remote, no power button, one channel controlled by the state and one volume setting - too loud. It will also have ten cameras to ensure you are watching and not being subversive; you really need to keep your social credit score up there if you want to eat.

  17. More spying by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    You think Samsung smart TVs spied on you? Just wait until TVs brought to you courtesy of the Communist Chinese government get here! Even more spying.
    DO NOT WANT!

  18. Inexpensive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Last I checked, $600 was pretty expensive.

    Just because Apple's prices are completely absurd doesn't mean half of Apple's prices is not also completely absurd.

  19. "inexpensive" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't know about you, but $500 for a smartphone is still expensive. Sure, it's less than the $750 or $1000 you'll pay for an iPhone, but it's still a price budget-conscious people will shy away from.

    There are some ~$200 Android phones out there very similar to the OnePlus and should be "good enough".

  20. Where is the opportunity then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What can OnePlus make that is so different than everyone else?

    Seriously, what is the specific thing versus TCL, Samsung, LG, Sony, Panasonic, Vizio, Haier, Panasonic, and the rest that makes them sellable?

    1. Re:Where is the opportunity then? by crow · · Score: 1

      I don't know what they're going to do, but suppose they came out with an offering very similar to TCL, but allowed users to decide whether they wanted a FireTV, Roku, or non-smart interface? Wouldn't that be cool? I doubt that's where they're going. I would guess that TCL is the model they're going to try to emulate. TCL has Roku, so they'll go with something else.

      I wish them luck, as I want to see more competition in the TV market. I hope they find some combination of features that are missing right now and push other makers to improve their offerings.