I knew the OnePlus 15 camera looked familiar, then I remembered this Samsung phone

When OnePlus announced the OnePlus 15 less than a month ago, I couldn’t take my eyes off the phone’s camera housing design. I didn’t find it that attractive, but it looked eerily familiar. I just couldn’t put my finger on it why. But I finally figured it out.

I was looking through Samsung’s Galaxy F-series catalogue earlier today and the answer jumped at me. Why was I looking at Galaxy F phones, you ask? I don’t know. I was bored. But that’s beside the point. What’s important is that I found the reason why the OnePlus 15 looked so familiar. It was the Galaxy F42.

Now, the OnePlus 15 and Galaxy F42 are very different products. The Galaxy F42 is an old phone from 2021, and even when it was new, it was a cheap device, both literally and figuratively. That’s just the reality of it.

In contrast, the OnePlus 15 is the brand’s premium phone, boasting a superior build quality, a modern design, and high-end specifications.

But despite their inherent differences, of which there are many, there is a striking resemblance between the core design of the Galaxy F42’s and OnePlus 15’s camera housings. Check out the images below.

Image credit: Samsung; OnePlus.

It can’t be just me. It’s almost like OnePlus looked at Samsung’s old F42 and said, “I want that for the 15; just scale it up and make it look more modern.” Even the flash placement is identical.

Or maybe there was an older phone before the 2021 F42 that had this exact camera housing design. I’m not aware of it, though, and I know that the F42 is the only reason why the OnePlus 15 looked familiar.

It could be a coincidence, or OnePlus’ designers really looked at the F42 for inspiration. We’ll never know.

It’s an interesting look nonetheless, but it seems to have been abandoned by Samsung. And can you blame OnePlus, even if it borrowed it four years after the Galaxy F42 went on sale? At least OnePlus did manage to make it look more modern and bring it up to date. Samsung hasn’t.

The only problem I have with this is that, if Samsung ever decides to reuse this camera housing design for a newer phone, many people who are unaware of the Galaxy F42 will probably blame Samsung for copying OnePlus. But we’ll know better.