The dust has only just settled on the launch of the OnePlus 6T (and its swanky McLaren variant), but the ambitious smartphone maker is already working on its successor – and we may have just been given a glimpse of what it looks like.
An image posted by Ishan Agarwal – a leaker with a decent track record when it comes to this kind of thing – shows an internal meeting in which a new phone is apparently being discussed. The mystery phone in question features a circular camera array (a bit like the one Nokia used to use on its phones) and appears to be available in red and white.
Just in case you were doubting the legitimacy of the image, that's OnePlus CEO Pete Lau handling the device on the right of the image. This is very much the real deal, despite looking rather staged.
So what could this phone be? Well, companies like OnePlus will be prototyping handsets all of the time, so it could well be a device that will never, ever see the light of day. Or, if you were being really optimistic, it could be the much-anticipated OnePlus 7, seen in the flesh for the very first time.
Or, it could be OnePlus' mooted 5G phone, which is rumoured to be coming in 2019 (alongside the OnePlus 7) and will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chip, along with a 5G-capable X50 modem. Reports also claim this will be the first OnePlus handset to sell at a higher price than normal, which is understandable given the cutting-edge tech involved.
While we don't know the answer for certain, one rather more puzzling question remains – who took this image, and are they still employed by OnePlus? Taking into account that this appears to be quite a sparsely-populated meeting – and given the fact that the OnePlus CEO is featured in it – it's fair to say that pinpointing the person who took and 'leaked' the photo will be pretty easy.
That's assuming, of course, that this 'leak' is unintentional; this could well be a spot of clever marketing by OnePlus to keep the attention of the industry fixed firmly on its upcoming products, with a 5G-ready device being the most obvious focal point. 5G will reach the market in earnest next year and Samsung is expected to release a Galaxy S10 variant which will support the new network standard.
Trumpeting 5G connectivity will be a vital promotional tool for handset makers next year, especially as Apple – everyone's great rival – isn't expected to include 5G support in its 2019 iPhone models.
by dmcferran via Featured Articles
Posts
No comments: