While the whole world and certainly the Indian OnePlus fans were excited about their favourite company entering the Smart TV segment last year and releasing their first OnePlus TVs in the market, it also turned out to be a bit of a dampener. This is because while everyone knew that the company would launch their TVs in a premium segment, the price was a bit too much for many. The first OnePlus TVs started at Rs. 70,000 which is equivalent to $950 in the US. At this price, you can get the best of Mi TVs with the same Android TV experience and still save a lot of money.
And price being a major factor in buying decisions for Indians meant that OnePlus TVs did not make that much of impact in the market. It looks like OnePlus has realized their mistake and are launching affordable TVs in India very soon. OnePlus CEO Pete Lau took to Twitter to confirm that their next wave of OnePlus TVs is coming on July 2 in India. He says that the new OnePlus TVs will be “Smarter TV. Smarter Price” meaning that they will be mostly similar to previous ones with a low price tag.
Last year’s OnePlus TVs were great in display quality, sound and everything else but the price let them down. Now that we are going to have affordable TVs from the company, we will still see the same experience but we are sure that there will be corners cut in some departments. However, we still don’t expect these TVs to be as affordable as the Mi TVs or the recently-launched Realme TV which are priced below Rs. 15,000 (US $200) for a 32-inch model.
Also, we were surprised to see only a 55-inch version of the OnePlus TV last year so “smarter price” will also be because of the smaller display models coming next month. We also assume that the QLED displays used on the OnePlus TVs last year might be replaced with LCDs to trim down on pricing since QLED panels cost a lot. However, if the company manages to give a QLED display for a 32-inch version under Rs. 20,000 or US $300 then that would be a game-changer.
