Android Central Labs
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OnePlus announced earlier this week that it’s no longer launching new phones in the U.S. and Europe. Current devices will remain supported, but the company is effectively exiting these markets, and for people like me, that’s a problem.
The OnePlus 13 remains the only smartphone I’ve ever given a 5-out-of-5 score to. Looking back at the early 2025 launch, it’s clear this was the company’s last-ditch effort to impress would-be buyers, and I know it would have worked if OnePlus had a better presence with U.S. carriers. The fact of the matter is that smartphones — especially flagships — live or die based on carrier availability, and OnePlus could be found in exactly zero U.S. carrier stores.
This tremendous misstep is but one of many mistakes the company made over the years, but it was likely the single largest problem that simply couldn’t be overcome in a very broken retail system. Losing OnePlus particularly sucks in the U.S. because no other smartphone companies in the country push specs the way OnePlus did, and no other flagship phones here have flicker-free displays.
That’s not to say some other phones globally don’t have even better displays than the OnePlus 13 or 15, but the company’s models have been the only choice for PWM-sensitive people in the U.S. since the OnePlus 12 debuted, and now it’s difficult to know where these folks will turn.
What made OnePlus and its displays so great
I’ve been writing about PWM dimming and its negative effects on people since I became PWM-sensitive in early 2023. My sensitivity stemmed from using the Galaxy Z Fold 4 too often in dim light (I regularly read in bed at night on the phone), and it took me months to learn that PWM dimming was the cause of the increasingly debilitating headaches I was getting.
OnePlus and Motorola were among the first companies to make phones I could comfortably use again, and it was amazing to me that these companies were paying attention to a problem that the Big Three (Apple, Samsung, Google) seemed unaware of. Honor has also become a favorite among the PWM-sensitive community over the years, but the company mainly operates in Europe rather than North America.
Now that OnePlus is exiting the U.S. market, the only companies left making major phones with healthier dimming options are Motorola and Nothing. Smaller vendors, like TCL and Nuu, also make phones with healthier displays, but those companies typically target more budget-friendly releases, not the spec-boundary-pushing flagships that OnePlus has long made.
Motorola’s last traditional flagship phone in the U.S. was the Edge Plus 2023, and while the company has pushed its folding phone lines with the Razr Ultra and Razr Fold since then, there’s no sign of an iPhone, Galaxy S Ultra, or Pixel competitor from them. Nothing also makes some pretty great phones, but even the company’s “flagship” phone is not a true flagship.
The only real solution for flicker-sensitive people is to either choose an under-specced phone or to import something, and both options have their downsides. Oppo told Android Central that Realme is replacing OnePlus in the global market but didn’t speak specifically to U.S. availability. And thus remains the problem of what to do.
My recommendation right now is to buy whatever is available from OnePlus until it’s no longer available. The company is still offering the promised seven years of support for the OnePlus 13 and 15, and the OnePlus 15R has the best OLED display for flicker-sensitive people I’ve seen to date. You’ll also still get warranty support if something goes wrong.
But the future looks murky at best. No companies based in China want to enter the tumultuous U.S. market because of politics, and, aside from UK-based Nothing, no new brands have entered the market in a while anyway.
Unless Samsung decides that it all of a sudden cares about our eye health, or vendors like Google and Apple start adopting displays with better eye-care solutions, the only real solution is to import and hope the phone works on your carrier of choice, and that’s a pretty lousy place to be in.
