OnePlus is gearing up to release a new smartphone, the OnePlus 7, and it has reached the point in its hype cycle where the company has started a slow drip of information every few days. The latest news is the launch date itself. OnePlus is holding a launch event May 14 in several cities, and the company is even selling tickets to the event to the general public.
For this year’s flagship release, OnePlus is actually announcing two phones: the OnePlus 7 and the OnePlus 7 Pro. While a lot of companies release two phones with identical designs in two different sizes, that is not the case here. OnePlus is shipping two different phones with different designs.
We’ve already seen a bit of the OnePlus 7 Pro. We posted renders in March showing an all-screen OnePlus phone with a pop-up camera and three cameras. At the time, we called it the OnePlus 7, but this is actually the OnePlus 7 Pro.
The second device, the OnePlus 7, apparently looks more than a little like the OnePlus 6T. Renders from OnLeaks show a device with a teardrop front camera notch and two rear cameras. A good theory is that the plain-old OnePlus 7 would aim to provide a good, basic high-end smartphone with a low-ish price. The OnePlus 7 Pro, then, would be the higher-end device filled with new and expensive features.
Now, about those OnePlus 7 Pro-exclusive features. A OnePlus teaser claims the company’s new phone will be “Fast and smooth,” and in an interview with The Verge, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau said the Pro would have a new display that was three times more expensive than the display used on previous models. A report from Android Central claims this is in reference to a 1440p, 90Hz display coming to the OnePlus 7 Pro. Normal smartphone displays run at 60Hz (60 frames per second), but lately we’ve seen devices like the iPad Pro and the Razor Phone 2 ship with a 120Hz display. With the display running at 90Hz and the software rendering at 90 frames per second, you would get smooth scrolling and gameplay, but it will come at a battery cost. The Android Central report also lists a 4,000mAh battery for the Pro and 30W fast charging.
OnLeaks claims the display on the Pro is 6.64 inches, which would make it bigger than the 6.4-inch display on the OnePlus 6T. He claims the triple rear camera setup has a 48MP primary camera, a telephoto lens, and a wide-angle lens, which would be pretty standard. OnLeaks also pegged the existence of a third OnePlus 7 variant (the OnePlus 7 Pro 5G) that was later confirmed in The Verge’s interview.
As for the regular OnePlus 7, renders from OnLeaks claim it looks just like the OnePlus 6T, with a slightly tweaked rear camera setup. The screen size is the same 6.4-inches, it still has the teardrop camera notch, and it will have a glass back. It looks just like a spec-bumped OnePlus 6T.
Speaking of those spec bumps, like every other phone this year, both versions of the OnePlus 7 will be outfitted with a Snapdragon 855 SoC, with a maximum of 10GB of RAM for the top-end version (probably the Pro only). The in-display optical fingerprint reader will be making a return, and there reportedly still won’t be wireless charging.
As the value champions of the Android world, the big question will be the price of the OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro. The OnePlus One originally started at $300, and since then the price has gone up every year. Will the OnePlus 7’s recycled design mean the price is staying the same? How much more expensive will the Pro be? We’ll be at the event May 14 to find out.
