OnePlus X Toyota-incompatible Android Phone!
So-called "flagship killer" less than flagship quality
Chinese maker oneplus.net builds so-called "Flagship Killer" Androidphones. As of this writing the models are OnePlus One, Oneplus 2, and
OnePlus X. Generally expensive, over $300, these phones claim to have
features similar to the latest iPhone (6 series) and Samsung Galaxy
phones, all of which cost twice the money.
Now as of late 2015, the company offers a phone called OnePlus X. The
attractiveness of the X is the lower price ($250) and smaller than
big-slab design of the One and 2 models. This I find desirable as I am
not going to carry something that is too darned big for a pocket.
After putting in a request for an "invitation" to buy, in not too many
days the company did issue an invitation. Then after making the
purchase, the OPX did arrive after not too many days, all the way from
China.
Numerous articles are out there telling about the features of OnePLus X,
and how it provides "weak" LTE support, lacking Band 17 which is widely
used by AT&T. I do use AT&T with the phone and do get LTE coverage, but
guess that it may not be optimum. Since I do little video streaming, I
do not find this to be a fatal flaw, at least not for me.
For me, the broken Bluetooth is the real stinker. I have a new Camry
(only the most popular car in the USA) and a fairly new Tundra. Both
come with factory issued "Entune" radios. Not the most fancy, but still
very usable. Both allow up to 5 phones to be paired, and I have
successfully used other Android phones as well as iPhone4 and iPhone5,
Blackberry Bold and Classic, and even Nokia Lumia 630 windoze phone.
These are all fine with both Toyota radios.
Back to the phone book issue -- OPX fails to deliver vcards*.vcf file to
the car radio. Working with CS via email support got the usual banter
such as "tell us your Android version" going in. Then at Level 2 we got
a request to nuke the phone as a "troubleshooting" step: Press and hold
the volume down and Power button. Then Wipe data and cache.
Wiping data and cache takes your phone to plain blank factory-issued
state. You are starting from zero and it will be a while before you get
back, presuming you have backed up contacts etc. Now we go and try it
with fresh pairing for first car radio and it works!
Only problem left: Now try to pair it with second car radio and it
fails! CS solution: Info forwarded to ROM department so that they will
add that to our future updates.
What we do not have is any confirmation that OnePlus has replicated the
issue. We have even less confidence that new firmware will fix the
issue, and absolutely no idea of when to expect it.
Conclusion: If you have more than one Toyota, Never Settle for a
OnePlus X! It is more trouble than it is worth. If it gets fixed
before summer of 2016, I look forward to updating this article.