Over the past few days, Claude’s rollout of Fable 5 has been anything but smooth. Access to the model was temporarily pulled, restored shortly afterward, and then followed by multiple extensions of free access as more people rushed to try it. If you’ve been following along, chances are you’ve had a hard time keeping up with all the changes.

Thankfully, things are starting to settle down. Fable 5 is now officially included with Max and Team Premium subscriptions, although those users will get about 50% of the model’s normal usage limits. The upside is that subscribers no longer have to wonder whether they’ll be able to use the model on a given day — they’ll know exactly what their plan includes.

With just two days to go before Samsung officially announces its new Galaxy Watch lineup at Unpacked, a new leak has given us a great look at what’s in store for the Galaxy Watch 9 and the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2.

Leaker Evan Blass has shared new marketing images and specs of both smartwatches in his newsletter. First, the leaked marketing images confirm that the Galaxy Watch 9 will use the Snapdragon Wear Elite chipset, corroborating a leak from a few days ago stating that both the Watch 9 and Watch Ultra 2 will come with the Qualcomm SoC.

Gemini is the Swiss Army knife of the AI world. Backed by Google, it is available across platforms and deeply integrated into Android, letting it do things no other chatbot can do right now. And the pace at which Google has brought Gemini up to speed with its rivals is just remarkable. Having said that, it often feels like ChatGPT made the best of its first-mover advantage, maintaining its lead in overall usability and response quality even today.

I jump between Gemini and ChatGPT throughout the day for different tasks, using each quite extensively. Despite having access to Gemini’s full capabilities through my Google AI Pro plan, I continue to separately subscribe to ChatGPT because Google’s AI chatbot still doesn’t feel like it’s there yet, and these are my reasons.

It took a while, but more users are turning to AI for advice in their daily lives. That also extends to buying advice (for better or worse). As someone who makes a living reviewing and comparing smartphones, I was curious how well the top large language models would do at my job. I wanted to see if they could take in all the reviews and information to come up with a coherent recommendation that would benefit most users.

It took a bit of effort, and the process wasn’t as clean as I’d hoped — especially with people’s money on the line. However, once the smoke cleared, I was surprised by the results. I asked ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to pick the best smartphone for most people, and here’s what they came up with.

The stable version of Android 17 finally dropped in June 2026 for Pixel phones, adding a bunch of great new features. However, in typical Google fashion, not every Android 17 feature announced during Google I/O is available yet. One of the big ones that’s yet to arrive is Pause Point, a new Digital Wellbeing tool designed to help you break the habit of autopilot app use or doomscrolling.

What sets Pause Point apart from Android’s existing Digital Wellbeing tools is that, rather than locking you out of the app from the get-go, it takes a slightly different approach by giving you a 10-second breather to reflect on your intention for opening the app in the first place. Pause Point also lets you set a usage timer and even suggests alternative apps to better utilize your spare time. The coolest part, though, is that disabling it requires you to restart your phone, which means it’s not so easy to disable Pause Point and jump back to your old habit.

As I look at the Galaxy Watch 4 clasped to my wrist, I feel little desire to upgrade to a new Samsung model. There’s much excitement surrounding the incoming Galaxy Watch 9 and Galaxy Watch Ultra 2, and the recent rollout of the upgraded Health app teased a plethora of new features.

Fitness index? Vitals? Hearing health!? They all read pretty exciting on paper. But after many years, Samsung and its contemporaries have yet to properly recreate a Garmin feature that wraps my entire day’s activity into a neat number. That feature? Body Battery.

Doomscrolling is a concept we are all very well-acquainted with. Netflix might have a seemingly endless list of movies to offer, but actually finding one that you want to watch always feels completely out of reach. All too often, I find myself sitting on the couch, remote in hand, trying to figure out what to watch while the evening wastes away. The paradox of modern streaming is that the more choices we have, the harder it becomes to settle on anything, turning what should be a relaxing evening into a tedious exercise in decision paralysis. Me? I usually end up on YouTube. But I digress.

After spending a week letting a chatbot dictate my evening TV watching, I'm convinced this is the future of streaming on Google TV.

Recently, I was pitched an interesting solution to exactly this discovery problem by Indian hardware upstart, Lumio. Dubbed Project Neo, it is an experimental AI agent designed to bridge the gap between the devices we use to discover content and the screen we watch it on. And the best part is that it does this using apps you use every day.

Remember the early days of Android? It felt like the Wild West in the best way possible. You could hop onto the Play Store, type in a random app or game you wanted — like a flashlight, a simple unit converter, or a quirky indie puzzle game — and download a completely free app that did exactly what it promised.

Sure, there might have been a tiny, unobtrusive banner ad at the bottom of the screen, but it was a fair trade. You got a great tool, the developer made a few pennies, and everyone went home happy. Fast forward to today, and that beautiful, open ecosystem is actively suffocating.

ChatGPT has its own reason to kill its browser, but don’t let this decision make you believe that AI browsers are doomed. As a matter of fact, they’re only going to become a more ingrained part of our lives, just as web browsers themselves did back in the day. 

As ChatGPT Atlas shuts down, here are some of the best AI web browsers that you can try out instead. 

Google recently shared new Pixel 11 teaser images, giving us our first look at Pixel Glow. I love that Pixel Glow is real, and it opens up some interesting integration possibilities. Google needed to do something with its hardware without a drastic design change, which has been a relative sales success for the company.

While I’m glad that Google is pushing ahead with new features, it masks the troubles ahead for the Pixel 11.

We give Motorola a lot of criticism for its software. It’s justified — Motorola’s update practices are nothing short of terrible, and they deserve to be called out.

Ignore updates, though, and Motorola’s Hello UI is one of my favorite Android skins. From gestures that debuted over a decade ago to new software tricks for folding phones, there are plenty of Motorola software features I wish all my phones had.

Samsung’s second Galaxy Unpacked event of the year is scheduled for July 22 in London, UK, and the event will be livestreamed on YouTube. We’ve come across innumerable leaks and early teasers of the devices that will be showcased at Unpacked, revealing practically everything we need to know.

However, given the number of devices Samsung is expected to launch next week, including that wide foldable we’ve all been looking forward to, things will look a bit different than the mid-year Galaxy Unpacked events of the past. With that in mind, here’s what we expect to see from Samsung’s hardware launch event on Wednesday.

Google’s Gboard keyboard wants nothing more than to help you get the thoughts in your head turned into words on your screen, as easily as possible. We already have so many different ways to accomplish that, from good old-fashioned tapping away at letters, to the oh-so-slick “Glide” swipe input, to the modern convenience of voice typing. But now Google could be about to seriously level up its accessibility game, as Gboard gets ready to understand sign language.

You’re reading an Authority Insights story. Authority Insights brings you all the latest exclusive reports, app teardowns, leaks, and in-depth tech coverage from the Android Authority team that you won’t find anywhere else.

Everything’s getting more expensive lately, and streaming services aren’t exempt. Case in point: Apple Music just queitly increased its prices. As reflected on its website, Apple Music subscribers will now pay between $1 and $3 more per month, depending on their plan.

Apple Insider spotted the changes today. Apple hasn’t made a formal announcement about the price adjustments, but listed prices for the service’s Individual, Family, and Student plans have all increased.

We know the Google Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, and Pixel 11 Pro Fold are set to launch at an event taking place on August 12, but we’re not expecting to see the Pixel 11a on store shelves until sometime next year. Today, though, a new leak is giving us some insight into what we should expect out of the upcoming midranger.

Some purported key specs for the Pixel 11a have been published on the Mystic Leaks Telegram channel. Per Mystic Leaks, the phone will come with 8GB of RAM, a 6.3″, 1080p display, and most importantly, a Tensor G6 chipset. That’d represent a considerable leap over this year’s Pixel 10a, which stuck with the same Tensor G4 as the 2024 Pixel 9 series.

Claude is becoming increasingly capable of handling multi-step tasks on your behalf, but even the smartest AI agents hit a fairly obvious wall when they reach a login screen. You could give the agent your passwords, but many of you will understandably recoil at the mere idea of that. 1Password has come up with an answer, launching an integration that lets Claude sign into websites without the AI ever seeing the credentials it uses.

As detailed in a blog post (via Tech Radar), 1Password for Claude allows Anthropic’s assistant to request access to a saved login when it reaches a sign-in page. The user is shown which credential Claude wants and why, then has to approve the request biometrically before 1Password fills in the details.

To say that the cat’s out of the bag when it comes to this summer’s Samsung foldable launches might be a bit of an understatement. The Galaxy Z Fold 8, Fold 8 Ultra, and Flip 8 have been the subject of so many early leaks at this point, that it practically feels like they’re already here. As Samsung starts dropping some official teasers of its own in the leadup to next week’s Galaxy Unpacked event, we are checking out the latest image dump to detail exactly what Samsung’s cooking up for these models.

This time, the pics arrive courtesy of renowned leaker Evan Blass, and they sure all look like official Samsung marketing materials.

Keeping an eye on pets, kids, or the main living room is a lot easier when one camera can see nearly everything. The Eufy Security Indoor Cam S350 is built for that kind of job, and there’s a solid Amazon deal on it right now.

See the deal at Amazon

Anker makes a lot of popular charging gear, and the Anker Nano 45W Max GaN Smart Display Charger stands out from the usual wall plug crowd. It is a compact single-port USB-C charger with up to 45W output, GaN internals, and a built-in smart display that shows live charging info while your device powers up. Right now, there’s also a solid Amazon deal on it.

See the deal at Amazon

The TCL NXTPAPER 70 Pro stands out in a crowded phone market by doing something different. TCL built this midrange Android phone around its matte, paper-like NXTPAPER display, which is made to cut glare and make the screen easier on your eyes. There’s also a deal on it right now at Amazon, which makes this a good time to take a closer look.

See the deal at Amazon

Generative AI is everywhere, whether it’s used as a cornerstone of a service, used to build apps, or employed to boost functionality within them. But with so many new products appearing all the time, which ones are worth checking out?

We’re here to help with a new regular series covering the best and freshest AI apps and services that you should know about.

Smart glasses are advanced pieces of tech with huge promise, giving you a heads-up display, a camera, or a voice assistant on your face. But while these devices nailed the “smart,” they struggled with the “glasses” of it all. The hardware was bulky, and the battery died pretty quickly, while the sleeker options didn’t have as many features.

INMO designed the GO3 to fix this glaring issue. At around 58 grams, it’s about the weight of a normal pair of glasses and looks like one, too. It’s not lacking in smarts, though, with plenty of AI-powered features packed into this frame. Here’s what you need to know.

OnePlus’s demise in the US and Europe over the last few months has been like watching a slow-motion car accident. We knew precisely what was going to happen, but we were powerless to stop it. It’s especially disappointing given the already sorry state of the US phone marketplace, devoid of meaningful choices and aggressive competition. Sure, Nothing hopes to fill some of the void left by OnePlus, but it’s not the same.

Unfortunately, it means that sooner or later, you’ll need to find viable alternatives to your beloved OnePlus device. Thankfully, the company has vowed to honor the software support life promised for its phones, but if you’re coming from an older OnePlus 8 or 9, it’s time to find a new home.

It’s no secret that the Pixel 11 series is on the way. Google has officially announced it will host an event on August 12 in New York to unveil the “new generation of Pixel devices,” widely expected to be the Pixel 11 series.

That said, more concrete leaks have surfaced as the launch nears. In fact, a massive leak this month has already revealed the Amazon listings for the new devices, complete with renders, specs, and pricing.

Recently, our very own C. Scott Brown declared the Trump T1 the worst Android phone he’s used in 2026. I can understand the sentiment, and I’m certainly not arguing with him on this one, but the truth is that the Trump phone is in good company. In fact, there are plenty of devices out there that I could argue are, in some ways, almost worse.

At least with the Trump phone, all the red flags were already there. Inconsistent design renders before the phone came out, constant delays, and relatively sketchy marketing should have been enough to tell most buyers to avoid the Trump phone.

Samsung has been rolling out new One UI 9 betas for the Galaxy S26 series with a bunch of quality-of-life improvements, while still missing some Android 17 features. However, if you’ve been waiting for One UI 9 to roll out to S25 users, it seems that it could happen sooner rather than later.

User Fahad Ali Javed has shared screenshots of the One UI 9 internal test build for the Galaxy S25 Plus on X, along with the One UI 9 changelog for the S25 Plus (via SamMobile). One of the more interesting tidbits in the X post is a new “My FanCam” feature. This will reportedly use Galaxy AI to track subjects in videos and automatically reframe shots to keep them in frame.

Credit: Tushar Mehta / Android Authority

OnePlus, as we know it, is undergoing a massive change. After months of rumors, OnePlus’s incessant attempts to deny them, and even formal-looking indications, OnePlus has officially confirmed it is shutting shop in the US and Europe. It will continue to operate in higher-volume markets like China and India, perhaps living as a sub-brand under parent company OPPO (and likely without its distinct identity). But some other aspects of the business will be offloaded onto OPPO.

One of the most impactful changes during this transition is the final, definitive merger of OxygenOS back into OPPO’s ColorOS. In addition to any new devices launched in markets like India, future software updates for existing OnePlus phones will replace OxygenOS with ColorOS.

Samsung is no stranger to wild foldable and rollable phone ideas and concepts. The company has previously filed patents for a phone that looks like a brick and unfolds and rolls out into a tablet. It has also experimented with some crazy rollable phone ideas. Now, the company has filed yet another patent for a foldable phone that folds both ways.

The patent filing shows a phone that looks fairly similar to a Galaxy Z Flip (via FixyFlow). However, the phone in the patent drawings has curves near the hinge, presumably to prevent the display from colliding with itself when folded inwards or outwards.

A month after launching the RockNeo Q110H lawn mower in the US, Roborock is back with yet another robot lawn mower. This time, the company is opening sales of its high-end RockMow X120H LiDAR lawn mower in the US, and it’s offering a $700 introductory discount to sweeten the deal.

The X120H is designed for people with large lawns and can cover areas up to one acre. It’s also completely wire-free and uses a base station to charge and store itself while not in use. Roborock says that the base station can be installed indoors or outdoors, depending on the user’s needs.

OnePlus has shared more details about its headline-grabbing exit from North America and Europe.

Specifically in the US, the company has confirmed that its regional Community platform will be shutting down next month. It has also revealed a few additional software changes that weren’t mentioned during a media briefing we previously attended.

Google may have accidentally offered another early glimpse at its next-generation Pixel lineup.

You’re reading an Authority Insights story. Authority Insights brings you all the latest exclusive reports, app teardowns, leaks, and in-depth tech coverage from the Android Authority team that you won’t find anywhere else.

Editing a video typically involves a long process of fixing lighting, changing backgrounds, or endless retakes to get the perfect shot. Now, Google is rewriting the playbook with massive Google Vids updates that do the AI work for you.

The biggest new addition to Vids is Gemini Omni, Google’s multimodal video generation model first shown off at I/O 2026. With Vids, you can now create or edit videos from natural language prompts, whether you’re starting from scratch with text and images or editing an existing clip, per Google’s blog post. You can skip the timeline and just tell Gemini to change a background, improve lighting, or add visual effects with conversational prompts.

Google will certainly feel that it belongs at the front of the AI race with the other big hitters, but its next big Gemini model is said to be struggling to get over the line. Gemini 3.5 Pro is reportedly months behind schedule as Google works to bring it up to its internal standards.

According to Bloomberg, the delay is based on information from people familiar with the matter, along with ten current and former Google employees. The setback has reportedly frustrated engineers, researchers, and managers inside the company, with some worried that Anthropic and OpenAI are beginning to pull further ahead.

A modern smartwatch is capable of nearly as much as our phones themselves, but a whole lot of us probably use them for just two main purposes: checking notifications, and tracking health data. That’s just going to make us feel all the more frustrated when one of these basic operations stops functioning properly. Earlier this week, we shared with you a problem Pixel Watch owners were having with sensor permissions, preventing them from logging health metrics. Today we finally have an update on the situation.

Google Gemini is already an incredibly versatile tool, and that versatility doesn’t just extend to the questions it’s capable of answering, nor the tasks in can accomplish. We’re also talking about just how many options Google gives you for how you’d like to interact with the AI agent, letting you choose between some very distinct voice models: Orbit, Pegasus, Ursa, and more. And while that’s already very nice, it looks like Google’s currently working to give us a whole lot more fine-grained control over just how these voices sound.

You’re reading an Authority Insights story. Authority Insights brings you all the latest exclusive reports, app teardowns, leaks, and in-depth tech coverage from the Android Authority team that you won’t find anywhere else.

Who among us couldn’t use a little more focus in our lives? With a seemingly endless source of distraction no further than our phones away, sometimes it takes a concerted effort to make sure that you’re really putting all your attention on the tasks that need it most. Google Calendar already offers a “focus time” mode to help out with just that, and right now it looks like Google’s preparing to make it even easier to work with.

You’re reading an Authority Insights story. Authority Insights brings you all the latest exclusive reports, app teardowns, leaks, and in-depth tech coverage from the Android Authority team that you won’t find anywhere else.

A rare discount has dropped the LG 45GX950A-B UltraGear OLED gaming monitor to $1,349.99 at Amazon. That saves you a sizeable $650 off the $1,999.99 recommended retail price, which is a 33% discount.

See the deal at Amazon

Customers today have plenty of options for great Android tablets, and we’re regularly including Lenovo among the brands making that list. The company announced the Tab Plus Gen 2 roughly a month ago, though its availability has been limited to Europe. That’s changing now, with Lenovo officially releasing the midrange tablet for US and Canadian customers.

Among the key highlights of this tablet are its uniquely designed kickstand and the (giant) JBL-branded nine-speaker system with support for Dolby Atmos and Hi-Res Audio. You can also use the tablet as a dedicated Bluetooth speaker, which is potentially one of its best party tricks.

Amazon has dropped the Hisense 50-inch E7 Cinema Series Fire TV to $397.99, down from its $699 recommended retail price. That saves you $301, which is a 43% discount off the RRP, and is also returns to the all-time low Prime Day price, so this is a strong time to grab it.

See the deal at Amazon

If you’ve been using Gemini with Gmail or Calendar, you’ll already know how much time it can save by pulling information from the apps you use every day. Google now wants to bring that same idea to Search, except this time it’s not just answering questions — it’s helping you actually get things done.

Starting today in the US, you can switch to AI Mode in Google Search and link to supported third-party apps. The initial lineup includes YouTube Music, Canva, and Instacart.

Google is folding NotebookLM into the Gemini brand: The company announced today that NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook. The renamed platform itself isn’t changing, but its new branding does make it clearer that the service formerly known as NotebookLM is a part of Google’s broader AI ecosystem.

If this sounds familiar, you may be remembering a feature Gemini picked up in April called Notebooks. That update let users start research projects inside Gemini and then later continue them inside NotebookLM. That’s still possible today; the only aspect of Gemini Notebook that’s changed is the name.

When you drop hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on a new phone, you expect the hardware to last. And while you can wrap it up in a protective case to help avoid accidental damage, what are you supposed to do if the phone starts degrading, all on its own? Earlier this week we took a look at how the screens on some Galaxy S26 Ultra handsets were slowly turning red, and owners were concerned their OLED panels were prematurely failing. Thankfully, we’ve already got some good news for them.

South Korea’s News 1 reports that Samsung has confirmed that this is not a matter of failing hardware, at all. It’s not burn-in, nor the OLED deteriorating. Instead, this is being framed as a software optimization effort gone awry. And the best part about that: It should be totally fixable in software.

The Tapo SolarCam 1080p Outdoor Wireless Security Camera is a cable-free outdoor camera built for basic home monitoring, and there’s a record Amazon deal on it right now. Made by Tapo, this is the C402 Kit, a wire-free camera that comes with a solar panel to help keep it charged with less hands-on upkeep.

See the deal at Amazon

Update: July 16, 2026 (7:03 PM ET): T-Mobile has reached out to Android Authority with this statement:

“Our priority is to ensure customers keep the promotions, credits and benefits of their current plan. We’ve identified technical issues affecting a very small number of customers and are working quickly to correct them. For some of those customers, free line promotions were not reflected correctly following migration due to a delay in applying promotional discounts. Those free lines remain free, and we’re restoring the discounts, backdating them where needed, and reprocessing accounts to ensure customers receive the benefits they were promised. We’re also investigating reports that some people were incorrectly billed for Hulu following migration and are actively working to identify the cause. We apologize for the confusion and will make it right for our customers.”

Life360, the maker of the popular Tile range of smart trackers, is giving its product range another glow-up after releasing the Earthline in April. The company has freshly released visually upgraded versions of the Tile (formerly Tile Mate) and Tile Slim featuring beloved Disney characters Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

These Mickey and Minnie-themed trackers will offer the same set of features as their vanilla counterparts, including up to three years of battery life. You also get 350 feet of range from both trackers, making them ideal to keep track of your most valuable items.

Valve’s Steam Deck was one of the first pieces of hardware from the company that truly hit it off. The $399 console let users play games on the go and was considered by many to be an excellent alternative to the Nintendo Switch. The company also assured users that the console would be easy to repair and partnered with iFixit to sell OEM replacement parts for it. That was all great, but it seems to be coming to an end.

According to a screenshot of an email shared on Reddit, iFixit has stopped stocking batteries for the original Steam Deck with an LCD. iFixit’s email also stated that it’s unlikely to continue receiving OEM batteries for the LCD Steam Deck and is instead looking at aftermarket options.

The sweeping Batteries Regulation passed in 2023 in the EU requires most electronics to have user-replaceable batteries by 2027. The aim was to reduce electronic waste and prolong the life of devices. We’ve already seen ripples from this legislation with Nintendo actually planning a user-swappable battery for the upcoming Switch 2. The European Commission is starting to backtrack on some of the rules for some product categories.

The European Commission announced that it has adopted a delegated act that broadens the list of exemptions under the EU Batteries Regulation. Six new categories of products will be exempt from the consumer-removable battery requirement. This includes wearables like smartwatches and fitness trackers, smart glasses, and electronics embedded into clothing or accessories. Other items on the list were rechargeable electric toys, portable food-thermometer probes, certain on-body medical delivery systems, roof-mounted telematics devices for agricultural and construction equipment, and products for explosive environments.

It’s officially foldable season. Samsung has already confirmed its next Galaxy Unpacked event for July 22 in London, where the company is widely expected to unveil its next generation of foldable phones.

While rumors suggest the Galaxy Z Flip 8 could be Samsung’s last flip-style foldable make me a little sad, I’m actually more concerned about what Samsung seems to be doing with its book-style foldable lineup.

YouTube Music is an excellent app for streaming music: it’s free (if you don’t mind the ads), and it’s bundled with YouTube Premium, so you get two things for the price of one. It’s also really good with recommendations and almost always gets the next track right. However, if there’s one thing some of us don’t like about the YouTube Music experience, it’s the Now Playing screen. Fortunately, it looks like Google is testing a change to improve its appearance.

Look, there’s nothing really wrong with YouTube Music’s Now Playing screen, but the tiny album art looks outdated. It’s a relatively minor gripe, but it’s glaringly obvious, especially now that apps like Apple Music have switched to full-screen album art and even animated album art on their Now Playing screens.

For the past few years, recommending a smart ring has been fairly easy. If someone asked me which one to buy, I almost always pointed them toward Oura. The only hiccup was deciding whether the ring’s premium price and ongoing subscription were worth it. In other words, some wearable lines need a reinvention to stay relevant, but the Oura Ring wasn’t one of them.

Rather than chasing a flashy new health metric or gimmicky feature, Oura spent this generation refining what already worked and delivered a dramatically smaller device without sacrificing accuracy or battery life. The story isn’t just about what the Oura Ring 5 () can do (which is a lot), but how much easier it is to wear around the clock.

The buttons on smartphones don’t change very often. We’ve lost the physical home button, but other than that, it’s been consistent for a long time: A power key and volume buttons.

Lately, some companies have started to spice things up with new buttons dotted around their phones, and while some are great, dedicated AI buttons are not. After an extended period with the Motorola Razr Fold, I believe it’s high time Motorola (and others) killed off one of my least favorite smartphone trends.

Scrolling through your app drawer on a big Android screen has always felt like an unnecessary speed bump. That friction is finally being addressed by Google with a small but highly requested change to how you navigate your device.

The latest Android 17 QPR1 Beta no longer shows predicted apps at the end of the taskbar dock. Instead, it now displays your most recently opened apps, so the interface behaves in a much more predictable manner.

If you’ve been keeping up with OnePlus over the past few months, you probably saw this coming. Rumors that the company was scaling back or even shutting down in key global markets have been swirling since the start of the year, and with every new report, its future looked a little less certain. Now, those rumors have become reality. OnePlus has confirmed it won’t launch any new products in the US and Europe, effectively bringing its journey in those markets to an end.

I can’t lie, this news hit me harder than I expected. I’ve been rooting for OnePlus for years, and hearing this instantly took me back to the days of the original OnePlus and, later, the OnePlus 7T Pro — still one of my favorite smartphones ever made. Back then, OnePlus wasn’t trying to blend in with everyone else; it was the brand setting the benchmark. It consistently delivered incredible performance and excellent battery life without the flagship price tag. More importantly, every launch felt exciting because OnePlus always seemed willing to try something different.

OnePlus is leaving North America and Europe, bringing an end to one of Android’s most remarkable success stories.

For many Android enthusiasts, OnePlus wasn’t just another smartphone brand. It was the company that proved you didn’t have to spend flagship money to get a flagship experience. Today, that story is coming to an end, at least in the US and Europe.