OnePlus CEO Pete Lau has confirmed the company is working on a new 5G smartphone for release this year, leading to fresh rumblings a OnePlus 7T is in the works.
Lau made the comments to the UK Financial Times earlier this week. He didn’t give the handset a name or confirm any details outside of the fact it will boast 5G connectivity.
The news follows rumblings the company is set to release a T-variant of its current OnePlus 7 Pro flagship. The T-branding is a tactic OnePlus used on the OnePlus 3, OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 6.
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It’s a 0.5 upgrade to that year’s flagship that adds minor hardware upgrades and fixes reported issues with the original.
This year we’d expect minor upgrades to the OnePlus 7 Pro’s camera, which failed to match many competing flagship phones performance in our review. Our best guess would the addition of a ToF (time of flight) sensor. The sensor is an increasingly common feature on flagship camera phones that can improve things like portrait shots.
We’d also expect a migration to Qualcomm’s new and improved Snapdragon 855 Plus CPU. The CPU was unveiled last month and is designed to boost key things like gaming performance. It debuted on the Asus ROG Phone 2.
OnePlus is one of many big name phone companies forecast to release a second 5G phone this year. Samsung recently launched a new Galaxy Note 10 5G phone, which will sit alongside the older Galaxy S10 5G. Xiaomi is also expected to unveil a new 5G handset by the end of the year.
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5G is a next generation networking technology that is rolling out in the UK at the moment. EE and Vodafone have limited live networks in select locations within London, Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh. Three and O2 are set to launch the technology later this year.
The tech offers users significantly faster data speeds than 4G that will let users do things like downloading entire TV series in minutes and streaming triple-A games over the cloud using services such as Google Stadia.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
