Winners and Losers of the week: Sony shines with new Xperia models, OnePlus Watch is a disaster

Well, yet another week has drawn to a close, and it’s time for me to run you through all the major tech happenings of the week and present them to you in this article that serves as a summary of sorts. As always, the prime objective of this weekly piece is to select one “winner of the week” and one “loser of the week”. 

And this week, when I posed this question on our Editorial slack channel (you know, to ask them who the rest of the team thought were the winners and losers), the response was unanimous. Everyone chose Sony as the winner for its promising new Xperia smartphone lineup while OnePlus earned the title of the loser for the horrible reviews that its first-ever smartwatch - the OnePlus Watch garnered. 

But before we talk about these two brands in detail, let us take a quick look at some of the other important developments from this week.

The major scoop of the week was Siri (inadvertently) announcing the next Apple event. A few hours following the supposed leak, Apple confirmed that it is, indeed, holding an event called “Spring Loaded” on April 20. It is expected that the event will largely be about new iPad models. But who knows what surprises Apple might have in store for us?

It is also notable that the company has another event scheduled on the eve of WWDC 2021, just a couple of months away.

Apple's 'Spring Loaded' event poster. / © Apple

On the same day Apple confirmed that it would be holding an event, its South Korean archrival Samsung responded by announcing the third ‘Galaxy Unpacked’ event of 2021. The company teased that this event - scheduled for April 28, 2021 - will see the launch of the most powerful Galaxy device ever. Rumour has it that Samsung is most likely to come up with new laptops (and perhaps, tablets). 

Motorola has been on a launch spree of sorts in 2021, coming up with several new products in the first quarter of the year. The momentum has spilled over the next quarter as well, and the company recently teased two new additions to the affordable G Series lineup in the form of the Motorola G60 and the Motorola G40 Fusion. These phones are India-bound initially but could arrive in the US and Europe within months. 

The yet to be launched iPhone 13 was also in the news this week after a leaked CAD drawing showed the supposedly refreshed camera arrangement on the next generation iPhone. You can track all the latest news surrounding the iPhone 13 in our dedicated hub article.

Chinese smartphone brand ZTE made headlines this week after it launched a new flagship smartphone called the Axon 30 Ultra. The main reason for the limelight was the fact that the device packs in three 64MP cameras - which is perhaps a world-first. We have covered the launch of the ZTE Axon 30 in detail.

The ZTE Axon 30 Ultra/ © ZTE

LG was also in the news earlier this week after it shared the list of smartphones that will receive the Android 11 and Andriod 12 update. After the company announced its exit from the smartphone business, there were concerns about the future of the smartphones that the company had already released. We have added the LG phones that will receive software updates for the foreseeable future in our Android 11 and Android 12 update tracker. 

Let us now talk about our winners and losers of this week.

Winner of the week: Sony for coming up with the cool new Xperia smartphones

Even though I may not agree with their ridiculous naming schemes (Did you know Sony Xperia 1 III, Sony Xperia 5 III are supposed to be read as Sony Xperia 1 Mark 3 and Xperia 5 Mark 3, respectively?), the fact is the new smartphones from the Japanese conglomerate are interesting and have so far, mostly received positive comments from the public as well as most tech journalists.

While many people had predicted that Sony’s smartphone division would end up just like LG; at least for the time being, the still seems a bit far-fetched.

The Sony Xperia 1 Mark 3! / © Sony

Nevertheless, the new phones from the company do look promising, and the hope is that they don’t mess up the announcement by pricing the phones without keeping in mind what the competition has to offer.

Sony has also been infamous for announcing phones several months in advance and ending up bringing the actual product to the market several months later after the initial hype has died down. Nevertheless, read this article to learn everything about the three new Sony Xperia smartphones the company announced this week.

Loser of the week: OnePlus, for launching a half-baked product

“The worst smartwatch ever”, “Just get a Fitbit”, “Boring”, “Inaccurate and buggy”: These are just some of the headlines that popular tech portals have used for the review of OnePlus’ first-ever smartwatch - the OnePlus Watch. 

Reviewers across the world have slammed the OnePlus Watch for being a poor product that fails to perform even the basic things a smartwatch is supposed to do. The $159 smartwatch has also been termed a "prototype disguised as a finished product" a sentiment I sort of echoed when I tested the OnePlus Band here on NextPit a few months ago.

Simply put, the overall feeling I get from this is that OnePlus needs to up its smartwatch/fitness tracker game. 

The OnePlus Watch has been a PR nightmare for OnePlus so far / © OnePlus

Anyway, that is all I have for you in this week's edition of NextPit's winners and losers. Do you agree with our choices? Or have a strong opinion on something mentioned in this article? Whatever it is, we would appreciate you taking out some time out to comment.  See you next week!

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