Last year, OnePlus in collaboration with Cyanogen, introduced the OnePlus One, which is still known as the flagship killer. The sheer performance and features coupled with a stellar build and aggressive pricing made even the most dominant of Smartphone forces to break a sweat. CyanogenMod has been known to be the best ROM outside of the stock android ROM and there have been instances where CyanogenMod has displayed more features than the regular Stock Android OS. What was once, just another ROM has now become an incorporated , and thanks to some really heavy funding from interested parties, Cyanogen has all the resources now to stick true to their promise of delivering a better experience, and in due time, lure Android away from Google. OnePlus on the other hand have their own success story, and one look at their product will tell you exactly why they are claiming to be the flagship killers in the market.
It all looked well, until recently, Cyanogen signed a special deal with Indian smartphone maker Micromax, giving them exclusive rights to the CyanogenMod OS. This did not go well with the OnePlus One Users in India, as Cyanogen stated they would no longer support OnePlus devices in the country. OnePlus One did come in two flavors, but it was the Cyanogen version that people liked best. Since that was gone, the future of the device was looking like a mess, but now, it looks like OnePlus has decided its time to move on.
It seems, OnePlus has quietly abandoned the Cyanogen badge from their OnePlus devices, which means, there will no longer be a CyanogenMod flavor of their popular device. What this also means os that the relationship between OnePlus and Cyanogen is clearly changed after the tiff between OnePlus and Micromax. So what now?
OnePlus will unveil its new ROM based on Android, dubbed ‘Oxygen OS’ on February 12th. According to OnePlus, this new ROM based on Android Lollipop, will be “open, customisable, and free of bloat and unnecessary features”.
Looks like OnePlus is ready to take on Cyanogen and CyanogenMod head-on and while I think OnePlus will prevail as far as sales are concerned, I would still say Cyanogen has made a mistake by agreeing to a contract with Micromax. Their Yu venture may be getting them sales, but when it comes to overall build, its a total dud.
This is one showdown I really look forward to. On February 12th, you can look forward to the Oxygen vs CyanogenMod beatdown right here.
