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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2023
When I buy an unlocked phone, I expect it to be FULLY unlocked. I was going to put LineageOS on this thing, but I guess not. I have been beyond upset to have to go through the Oneplus bootloader unlock process. Some sites say it takes 1-2 weeks, but now I'm over 3 weeks and the return window for this phone is rapidly closing (I'll not risk keeping it in this state). There's no reason why this entire process shouldn't have taken more than a few minutes. I kept checking their web site, and the request was received. I contacted Oneplus support and they said they'd get it fixed. Then a few leisurly days later I got an email from them stating there were further problems, and it would take even longer. SERIOUSLY??? The Oneplus system for this should be automated and also should have thrown an error to support if it had gotten stuck. Exceedingly sloppy programming. The speed of business moves in neither weeks nor months but hours and minutes. Other phone unlock processes can be done the same day...
Oneplus are acting like this phone was stolen and keep wanting more obscure serial numbers buried deeper and deeper. I didn't even know that some of those serial numbers existed. Am I about to get a visit from the police???
I've had my new SIM for a month now and really need to activate it... but I'm stuck paying absurdly higher prices on my FIOS landline that's gotten out of hand. I'm not happy about that. It would have been cheaper for me to buy a more expensive phone from someone else. I'm going to have to contact Mint and ask for an activation extension while my other phone I just bought takes another week to come in. And if anyone is wondering, if I activate the new SIM, I lose my land line and start having to pay for the SIM, and since I don't have a working cell phone, I lose all phone connection. That's not good for someone with really bad health problems.
There's also the second issue of not bothering to install and "move into" this phone because when a bootloader gets unlocked, it forces a factory reset and WIPES THE ENTIRE PHONE. My whole point of picking a fully unlocked phone is to "deGoogle" (check wikipedia for the long answer) and remove all their spyware and Tmo bloat with Lineage (see RAM below). I let my old Google logins expire and I'm not creating a new one where they demand my phone number just so they can track me forever (see "privacy" below).
Other observations:
This phone is a DE2118. This number is critical for the product page. When selling used phones, DETAIL AND ACCURACY IS EVERYTHING! I don't know why it's missing. You can find this model number in Config / About / Version, along with a couple other places.
Know what you're getting. This product falls below "Amazon Renewed" standards. The phone was packed loosly in a small box with a dinky bubble wrap sleeve. Expect the phone to be tumbled badly by the shipping company. For the people who are complaining about endless problems that are unfixable, this bubble wrap sleeve is NOT enough to protect the phone if it was dropped by the shipper. If you have problems, you need to immediately return the phone under Amazon's policies. The card eject pin was hiding under a box flap. I almost missed it. The screen protection plastic film didn't even cover the top or bottom sections of the screen.
Another thing I really don't like is that the charger is a generic USB-2 5v 2a Samsung charger with a USB A to C cable. This should have been a 9v USB-C fast charger (as stated by the manual) if it were really "equivalent" like "Amazon Renewed" advertises. The USB-C cable fits snugly into the phone but is only 3 feet. It is not enough to go from a floor power strip to a desktop. If you need a USB-C fast charger and didn't get one, you need to immediately return this phone under Amazon's policies and mention "failed equivalent" in the reason box.
The fingerprint sensor on the power button is questionable and cranky. I never messed with it long enough to figure out if it was really having hardware problems or if it was a bad design.
If anyone is curious, this phone did a 400meg Android 12 security update to the Nov 5, 2023 release. I don't know how many others it will officially get, but it won't get Android 13 (not at least from the telco). News Flash: It just decided to update to the Dec 5 patch. Looks like this one is 95megs. The telcos are about a month late with most Android security updates. It looks like this update broke my adb connection and installed cooking videos on the left screen. Way to waste my data and battery with useless videos. No telling how much RAM that's eating up (see below). Oh well, I'm about to factory reset this thing anyways...
On the Config / Status page, I do have some concerns that "Bluetooth address" is listed as "Unavailable". Once I got this thing set up, I was going to pick up a BT headset. If you prefer to use a headset with your phone, you may need to pick up a wired one.
If you're wondering why this phone can be so slow, have a look at "free -m" in "adb shell". This gets technical, but I'll try to keep it somewhat simple.
OnePlusN200TMO:/storage/emulated/0/DCIM/Camera $ free -m
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 3485 3243 241 3 6
-/+ buffers/cache: 3237 247
Swap: 2559 1137 1422
I copied this down shortly after I started ADB access. The missing 512megs is probably used by the graphics driver. The rest of the 3.5g of RAM is being eaten by Tmo bloat and Google spyware. There's also 1g in the swap partition (see wikipedia for the long definition). When this phone (or any with too much bloat and swap) "goes out to lunch", physical RAM is being swapped to disk (flash chip) in and out until the request you made finally has enough physical RAM to complete. Notice I just mentioned "flash chip". Flash is very slow and has a very limited write life cycle (see "flash memory" on wiki) and will die a very early death if thrashed by swap. For some of you people who keep having crashing problems with nothing running after factory resets, there's a good chance your flash "disk" got burned. Your phone is now e-waste. This is true for ANY phone or portable device. It's the same thing as a microSD card failing. As consumers, we absolutely hate having our device die an early death, but manufacturers love it because you have to buy a new phone much sooner.
As a side note, I did a dive into settings and tried to disable the bloatware to get some RAM back. I wasn't very successful. Remember I never installed anything on this phone because I'm waiting and waiting and waiting for the bootloader unlock code.
If you're an advanced user, be sure to download the newest versions of ADB and flashboot from the official google site. I was hoping to back this phone up with "flashboot fetch", but it doesn't support it. Go figure. (TWRP isn't supported on this phone, either.) This could have been a good way to image backup the phone since many Android backup methods are "mediocre" at best.
Also note that I've read many reviews of people upgrading to a new phone and their cloud backups NOT restoring when they should have (they wouldn't have been helped by "fetch" in this instance). So everyone be careful when moving over to a new phone. Your best bet is to move everything to the microSD card and copy that to your computer BEFORE making a big change. The adb command can be used in "pull" mode if you're advanced. It's odd how Google installs so much spyware but can't get that data back to the phone.
While looking for a possible way around the bootloader lock, I did come across *#808# that enters Engineer Mode. You can do a number of specific self tests and see some of the lesser used serial numbers if you dig deep. If you dig REALLY DEEP, you can find menus in chinese, and this really upset me. Why? I knew Oneplus was made in china, but not also programmed there, too. China isn't known for privacy. While installing LineageOS will remove a lot of their spyware and some of the back doors, it won't remove the ones that are baseband processor related. That device has its own little CPU and operating system (a little sub computer within your phone) and controls things like the cellular modem, microphone, and may have unrestricted direct access to the main operating system depending on how it's implemented. If I wanted the CCP to be spying on me, I would have bought a cheaper Xiaomi. If your're curious about privacy, head back over to wikipedia and look up: Spyware, Internet privacy, Data privacy, Privacy violation, Targeted marketing, De-anonymize, Mobile security, Surveillance capitalism, Zombie_cookie. That's just to get started. Wiki also sanitizes a lot of this information, so real stories tend to be more gruesome.
Ever wonder why illegals crossing the border take the battery out of their phones? Because "off" isn't really "off". Keep that in mind when reading all the wiki pages. Don't believe me? For the past month, this phone has been sitting "off" as a paperweight on top of my desk... Just waiting and waiting and waiting for that bootloader unlock code... One day it turned "on" and started making noises. It took me a minute to figure it out, but the phone received an Amber Alert and decided to turn back "on". Supposedly these also happen for weather, but the past month has been quiet here. Now ask yourself how an "off" phone suddenly decided to turn itself "on". (hint: baseband processor mentioned above.)
As a final privacy note: If someone was stalking/spying on you as much as Google, the phone manufacturer, and the telcos, if that person was caught, they'd be thrown in prison for a very long time. Something to think about.
Moving on... The phone I got has a screen in near perfect shape. I was pleased about that. On the back side is a rather noticable dent that I'm hoping didn't hit the battery. It hasn't charged hot, pushed out the back cover, or burst into flames, so I think it's ok.
Since I don't have the bootloader unlock code, I can't say anything about voice quality. The biggest reason I went with this phone was 5G support and most likely easy HD audio in my coverage area (probably better than 4G HD audio). I dumped my previous cell phones and kept my land line for so long because cell-to-cell calls suck badly, and I'm in a major metroplex, so that shouldn't happen. I was really hoping to test this out.
I never bothered trying out the 4 cameras and video recording. I did pick up a new 128g SDXC card, but I'm not motivated to do tests on a camera I'm about to return. I'd rather have 1 or 2 cameras in a phone that are high quality rather than having extra cameras that are useless. In a budget phone, we still have to pay for the extra useless cameras which just drives the price up and manufacturer profits down. They're nothing more than case bling.
I never bothered trying to figure out battery life since I still can't use this phone. If you do a web search, there's usually a way to pop the back off and unsolder the battery for a swap out for most phones. If you're semi technically inclined, you don't have to be stuck with a used battery that's a few years old. Note that all the spyware bloat I mentioned above will really drain an otherwise usable battery. Swap reads and writes to flash and back are very energy intensive. Most sites ignore this in their reviews.
Since this is a Tmo phone, make sure you have Tmo towers nearby and you should be happy with connectivity. I've read too many reviews about people buying a phone and the supported tower is across town and they get lousy reception. Don't be like that. My friends with Tmo phones get good enough reception where I live. In the past CDMA has sucked here, but that's going away, thankfully.
So what are my final recommendations in this overly long review???
If Oneplus ever got me my bootloader unlock key on time, I would have flashed LineageOS (probably the hard way since it's a de2118) and would have likely kept this phone regardless of the problems I mentioned. My phone needs are minimal given my health problems and I can't work. I like the slightly larger screen given my eyesight problems, too. My usage would involve the phone (obviously), GPS and open source maps, and the camera to document some of my hardware and projects. I wouldn't do any social media on this phone (not that I do social on my desktop, either).
If you're expecting to run a lot of on this phone with its 4gigs RAM, it's already filled (see above). With a stripped down mobile operating system, you "should" be able to, but it's obvious by the other reviewers complaining about slowness that it's not going to happen. If you live out of your phone and endlessly social day and night, you should look for a phone with 6-8gigs of RAM. Here's a final tip that may seem backwards: A phone with fewer/slower processors and more RAM is usually faster than a phone with more/faster processors and less RAM (hint: remember my swap argument above).
If you've made it this far, thanks for reading. If you learned something new, hit the "Helpful" button. The Amazon AI seems to like that.
Edit: The bootloader unlock key FINALLY came in... a month late. I told them to cancel it as I had a deadline and they missed it by a long shot (screwing me over in the process). I'm not going to be working with a company that screws up that badly on something so simple. I shouldn't have to fight with a manufacturer to get their claws out of something I own and they don't. Since the police never showed up, I'm assuming the phone is legit (per my question above).
Oneplus are acting like this phone was stolen and keep wanting more obscure serial numbers buried deeper and deeper. I didn't even know that some of those serial numbers existed. Am I about to get a visit from the police???
I've had my new SIM for a month now and really need to activate it... but I'm stuck paying absurdly higher prices on my FIOS landline that's gotten out of hand. I'm not happy about that. It would have been cheaper for me to buy a more expensive phone from someone else. I'm going to have to contact Mint and ask for an activation extension while my other phone I just bought takes another week to come in. And if anyone is wondering, if I activate the new SIM, I lose my land line and start having to pay for the SIM, and since I don't have a working cell phone, I lose all phone connection. That's not good for someone with really bad health problems.
There's also the second issue of not bothering to install and "move into" this phone because when a bootloader gets unlocked, it forces a factory reset and WIPES THE ENTIRE PHONE. My whole point of picking a fully unlocked phone is to "deGoogle" (check wikipedia for the long answer) and remove all their spyware and Tmo bloat with Lineage (see RAM below). I let my old Google logins expire and I'm not creating a new one where they demand my phone number just so they can track me forever (see "privacy" below).
Other observations:
This phone is a DE2118. This number is critical for the product page. When selling used phones, DETAIL AND ACCURACY IS EVERYTHING! I don't know why it's missing. You can find this model number in Config / About / Version, along with a couple other places.
Know what you're getting. This product falls below "Amazon Renewed" standards. The phone was packed loosly in a small box with a dinky bubble wrap sleeve. Expect the phone to be tumbled badly by the shipping company. For the people who are complaining about endless problems that are unfixable, this bubble wrap sleeve is NOT enough to protect the phone if it was dropped by the shipper. If you have problems, you need to immediately return the phone under Amazon's policies. The card eject pin was hiding under a box flap. I almost missed it. The screen protection plastic film didn't even cover the top or bottom sections of the screen.
Another thing I really don't like is that the charger is a generic USB-2 5v 2a Samsung charger with a USB A to C cable. This should have been a 9v USB-C fast charger (as stated by the manual) if it were really "equivalent" like "Amazon Renewed" advertises. The USB-C cable fits snugly into the phone but is only 3 feet. It is not enough to go from a floor power strip to a desktop. If you need a USB-C fast charger and didn't get one, you need to immediately return this phone under Amazon's policies and mention "failed equivalent" in the reason box.
The fingerprint sensor on the power button is questionable and cranky. I never messed with it long enough to figure out if it was really having hardware problems or if it was a bad design.
If anyone is curious, this phone did a 400meg Android 12 security update to the Nov 5, 2023 release. I don't know how many others it will officially get, but it won't get Android 13 (not at least from the telco). News Flash: It just decided to update to the Dec 5 patch. Looks like this one is 95megs. The telcos are about a month late with most Android security updates. It looks like this update broke my adb connection and installed cooking videos on the left screen. Way to waste my data and battery with useless videos. No telling how much RAM that's eating up (see below). Oh well, I'm about to factory reset this thing anyways...
On the Config / Status page, I do have some concerns that "Bluetooth address" is listed as "Unavailable". Once I got this thing set up, I was going to pick up a BT headset. If you prefer to use a headset with your phone, you may need to pick up a wired one.
If you're wondering why this phone can be so slow, have a look at "free -m" in "adb shell". This gets technical, but I'll try to keep it somewhat simple.
OnePlusN200TMO:/storage/emulated/0/DCIM/Camera $ free -m
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 3485 3243 241 3 6
-/+ buffers/cache: 3237 247
Swap: 2559 1137 1422
I copied this down shortly after I started ADB access. The missing 512megs is probably used by the graphics driver. The rest of the 3.5g of RAM is being eaten by Tmo bloat and Google spyware. There's also 1g in the swap partition (see wikipedia for the long definition). When this phone (or any with too much bloat and swap) "goes out to lunch", physical RAM is being swapped to disk (flash chip) in and out until the request you made finally has enough physical RAM to complete. Notice I just mentioned "flash chip". Flash is very slow and has a very limited write life cycle (see "flash memory" on wiki) and will die a very early death if thrashed by swap. For some of you people who keep having crashing problems with nothing running after factory resets, there's a good chance your flash "disk" got burned. Your phone is now e-waste. This is true for ANY phone or portable device. It's the same thing as a microSD card failing. As consumers, we absolutely hate having our device die an early death, but manufacturers love it because you have to buy a new phone much sooner.
As a side note, I did a dive into settings and tried to disable the bloatware to get some RAM back. I wasn't very successful. Remember I never installed anything on this phone because I'm waiting and waiting and waiting for the bootloader unlock code.
If you're an advanced user, be sure to download the newest versions of ADB and flashboot from the official google site. I was hoping to back this phone up with "flashboot fetch", but it doesn't support it. Go figure. (TWRP isn't supported on this phone, either.) This could have been a good way to image backup the phone since many Android backup methods are "mediocre" at best.
Also note that I've read many reviews of people upgrading to a new phone and their cloud backups NOT restoring when they should have (they wouldn't have been helped by "fetch" in this instance). So everyone be careful when moving over to a new phone. Your best bet is to move everything to the microSD card and copy that to your computer BEFORE making a big change. The adb command can be used in "pull" mode if you're advanced. It's odd how Google installs so much spyware but can't get that data back to the phone.
While looking for a possible way around the bootloader lock, I did come across *#808# that enters Engineer Mode. You can do a number of specific self tests and see some of the lesser used serial numbers if you dig deep. If you dig REALLY DEEP, you can find menus in chinese, and this really upset me. Why? I knew Oneplus was made in china, but not also programmed there, too. China isn't known for privacy. While installing LineageOS will remove a lot of their spyware and some of the back doors, it won't remove the ones that are baseband processor related. That device has its own little CPU and operating system (a little sub computer within your phone) and controls things like the cellular modem, microphone, and may have unrestricted direct access to the main operating system depending on how it's implemented. If I wanted the CCP to be spying on me, I would have bought a cheaper Xiaomi. If your're curious about privacy, head back over to wikipedia and look up: Spyware, Internet privacy, Data privacy, Privacy violation, Targeted marketing, De-anonymize, Mobile security, Surveillance capitalism, Zombie_cookie. That's just to get started. Wiki also sanitizes a lot of this information, so real stories tend to be more gruesome.
Ever wonder why illegals crossing the border take the battery out of their phones? Because "off" isn't really "off". Keep that in mind when reading all the wiki pages. Don't believe me? For the past month, this phone has been sitting "off" as a paperweight on top of my desk... Just waiting and waiting and waiting for that bootloader unlock code... One day it turned "on" and started making noises. It took me a minute to figure it out, but the phone received an Amber Alert and decided to turn back "on". Supposedly these also happen for weather, but the past month has been quiet here. Now ask yourself how an "off" phone suddenly decided to turn itself "on". (hint: baseband processor mentioned above.)
As a final privacy note: If someone was stalking/spying on you as much as Google, the phone manufacturer, and the telcos, if that person was caught, they'd be thrown in prison for a very long time. Something to think about.
Moving on... The phone I got has a screen in near perfect shape. I was pleased about that. On the back side is a rather noticable dent that I'm hoping didn't hit the battery. It hasn't charged hot, pushed out the back cover, or burst into flames, so I think it's ok.
Since I don't have the bootloader unlock code, I can't say anything about voice quality. The biggest reason I went with this phone was 5G support and most likely easy HD audio in my coverage area (probably better than 4G HD audio). I dumped my previous cell phones and kept my land line for so long because cell-to-cell calls suck badly, and I'm in a major metroplex, so that shouldn't happen. I was really hoping to test this out.
I never bothered trying out the 4 cameras and video recording. I did pick up a new 128g SDXC card, but I'm not motivated to do tests on a camera I'm about to return. I'd rather have 1 or 2 cameras in a phone that are high quality rather than having extra cameras that are useless. In a budget phone, we still have to pay for the extra useless cameras which just drives the price up and manufacturer profits down. They're nothing more than case bling.
I never bothered trying to figure out battery life since I still can't use this phone. If you do a web search, there's usually a way to pop the back off and unsolder the battery for a swap out for most phones. If you're semi technically inclined, you don't have to be stuck with a used battery that's a few years old. Note that all the spyware bloat I mentioned above will really drain an otherwise usable battery. Swap reads and writes to flash and back are very energy intensive. Most sites ignore this in their reviews.
Since this is a Tmo phone, make sure you have Tmo towers nearby and you should be happy with connectivity. I've read too many reviews about people buying a phone and the supported tower is across town and they get lousy reception. Don't be like that. My friends with Tmo phones get good enough reception where I live. In the past CDMA has sucked here, but that's going away, thankfully.
So what are my final recommendations in this overly long review???
If Oneplus ever got me my bootloader unlock key on time, I would have flashed LineageOS (probably the hard way since it's a de2118) and would have likely kept this phone regardless of the problems I mentioned. My phone needs are minimal given my health problems and I can't work. I like the slightly larger screen given my eyesight problems, too. My usage would involve the phone (obviously), GPS and open source maps, and the camera to document some of my hardware and projects. I wouldn't do any social media on this phone (not that I do social on my desktop, either).
If you're expecting to run a lot of on this phone with its 4gigs RAM, it's already filled (see above). With a stripped down mobile operating system, you "should" be able to, but it's obvious by the other reviewers complaining about slowness that it's not going to happen. If you live out of your phone and endlessly social day and night, you should look for a phone with 6-8gigs of RAM. Here's a final tip that may seem backwards: A phone with fewer/slower processors and more RAM is usually faster than a phone with more/faster processors and less RAM (hint: remember my swap argument above).
If you've made it this far, thanks for reading. If you learned something new, hit the "Helpful" button. The Amazon AI seems to like that.
Edit: The bootloader unlock key FINALLY came in... a month late. I told them to cancel it as I had a deadline and they missed it by a long shot (screwing me over in the process). I'm not going to be working with a company that screws up that badly on something so simple. I shouldn't have to fight with a manufacturer to get their claws out of something I own and they don't. Since the police never showed up, I'm assuming the phone is legit (per my question above).
