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Bug, hair, and excessive glue: Some OnePlus 12 buyers have been grossed out

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By Anam Hamid

Updated: Dec 11, 2023, 3:22 PM

Bug, hair, and excessive glue: Some OnePlus 12 buyers have been grossed out

For a brief moment, the OnePlus 12 seemed almost perfect. It has the brightest screen of any phone, the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, OnePlus Open's impressive camera array, great haptics, large battery, fast charging, wireless charging, and a healthy amount of RAM. Nothing in the world is perfect though.

Per posts on the Chinese social networking website Weibo, some OnePlus 12 units are suffering from quality control issues. As Android Authority notes, images show that there are gaps between the camera array and the rear glass.

Worried that this may impact the water and dustproofing capabilities of the device, one user reached out to customer care but they were assured that there's nothing to worry about.

This doesn't seem to be a widespread problem and judging by the photos, the gap between the camera island and the glass panel isn't significant. This is forgivable, right?

What can't be overlooked is that there's a hair and a real bug inside the back glass of one unit. That's gross and one of the apparent reasons why the poor insect and hair strands got stuck there is that a lot of glue was used during the assembly process. The insect couldn't get out in time.

That's surely not a good look for a phone that's yet to make its international debut and competitors may use this opportunity to show that the OnePlus 12 is not a good buy.

OnePlus exec says OnePlus 12 users have nothing to worry about (left) but Xiaomi exec is not so forgiving

Xiaomi's sub-brand Redmi's general manager Lu Weibing has already started throwing indirect shade at OnePlus. Without naming names, he said that the gap and excessive glue issues are caused by low internal standards. He even seems to imply that people are returning the OnePlus 12 due to these problems, but we don't know if that's true. What a bad start for a phone that stands a strong chance of being this year's best phone.

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Anam Hamid is a computer scientist turned tech journalist who has a keen interest in the tech world, with a particular focus on smartphones and tablets. She has previously written for Android Headlines and has also been a ghostwriter for several tech and car publications. Anam is not a tech hoarder and believes in using her gadgets for as long as possible. She is concerned about smartphone addiction and its impact on future generations, but she also appreciates the convenience that phones have brought into our lives. Anam is excited about technological advancements like folding screens and under-display sensors, and she often wonders about the future of technology. She values the overall experience of a device more than its individual specs and admires companies that deliver durable, high-quality products. In her free time, Anam enjoys reading, scrolling through Reddit and Instagram, and occasionally refreshing her programming skills through tutorials.

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Bug, hair, and excessive glue: Some OnePlus 12 buyers have been grossed out

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