If fans were to describe a OnePlus phone with just a few words, they would likely choose "fast," "charging speed," "Oxygen OS," and "the alert slider." Out of everything OnePlus does, these four things help differentiate its phones from the pack, but CEO Pete Lau doesn't seem to agree.
The long-time OnePlus CEO said that the company will be replacing the alert slider with an action button in an upcoming OnePlus phone, a move that quickly angered fans on the OnePlus Community forums. While this reaction is common among any fanbase when a long-time feature or function is changed, this time the overly negative response feels fully warranted.
The last time the company tried to mess with the alert slider was on the OnePlus 10T. That phone debuted in August 2022 and completely removed the alert slider altogether. The response then was overwhelming, and a few short months later, in February 2023, the OnePlus 11 prominently marketed the return of the alert slider to the cheering of the company's fans.
Forgetting the basics
The simplicity of the alert slider is what makes it so perfect.
The alert slider has been so popular that OnePlus's sister company, OPPO, has outfitted several phones, like the Oppo Find X8 Pro, with one.
Lau's post talked about how great the alert slider has been over the years, but that praise was suffused with the idea that the alert slider was somehow "old" feeling and needed to be replaced with a newer, better idea. Thus, the company has considered swapping out the three-way slider — which is the easiest way to switch between silent, vibrate, and ring modes on any phone to date — with a programmable button.
The programmable button concept has become popular with phone makers since Apple launched its Action Button on the iPhone 15 in 2023. The most recent Android spin on the concept can be found on the Nothing Phone 3a series, where Nothing made it function as an AI key for advanced screenshots and voice notes.
While Lau's idea of adding an action button is great — it's always nice to have more customizable options on complicated modern phones — the simplicity of the alert slider is what makes it so perfect. Replacing the alert slider is simply the wrong thing to do.
OnePlus says it's listening to feedback and wants to hear your opinion. Now's the time to voice it!
The alert slider makes it easy to know what sound mode your OnePlus phone is on with a simple glance. It's just as easy to switch between modes without ever having to turn on your screen or unlock the phone, and, for me, that's very important. I like my phone to make noise when I receive a notification. I miss notifications too easily otherwise, but it's not always appropriate for them to make noise.
While every phone has a silent or vibrate-only mode, no other modern phone makes it as easy to switch between these modes as OnePlus. This is a feature I use every single day, all throughout the day, and it's one of the reasons I use a OnePlus phone as my main device.
The silver lining is that while the OnePlus 13 Mini might see a release soon, the OnePlus 14 isn't expected until Q4 2025. That means there's potentially still time for OnePlus to reverse course before it makes a grave error. If you care about the alert slider and want to see it stick around, head to the post on the OnePlus Community and put your two cents in.
OnePlus, please don't replace the alert slider. We love it, and so do your fans. An action button is fine, but not in place of something that's already great. OnePlus has long been a brand "about the community" and says it's listening to feedback. This is the time to test that claim and see if it's true.
