Like all other OnePlus devices in the past, the OnePlus 5 and the 5T have disrupted the budget flagship segment. By offering flagship-grade features at half the price of an average flagship, OnePlus devices have maintained a strict loyalty and eaten market share from established brands like LG, Samsung, HTC and the likes. While there was some competition to the ‘flagship killer’ this year in terms of the Honor View10 and the Moto Z2 Force, the OnePlus 5 and later, the OnePlus 5T remained our favourite devices in that segment.
But as is the case for every offering by OnePlus, the OnePlus 5T will be retired soon in place of the OnePlus 6. The upcoming phone will supposedly be even better than the current crop of budget flagships and OnePlus has already started giving a peek into the possible set of features the phone will have. There have also been a series of leaks that have confirmed the rumours about the phone which helped us get a pretty good idea of what the phone will bring to the table.
What will the OnePlus 6 look like?
If you thought the OnePlus 5T looked a lot like the iPhone 7 Plus with a similar dual camera arrangement, the OnePlus 6 will take things even further. Yes, the upcoming phone will embrace the notch. The display cutout seen first on the iPhone X has put the rest of the smartphone makers into a frenzy with most of them now blatantly copying the feature. So will OnePlus, but the company offered a pretty good explanation for it. In an interview with The Verge, Carl Pei said the notch was inevitable as people wanted a bigger screen without increasing the size of the phone. Pei even shared a partial image of the phone showing the notch, as well as the dimensions of the notch. Going by the size, the notch will be smaller than that of the iPhone X, close to the one on the Huawei P20 Pro. Knowing the impending backlash the phone is likely to receive, OnePlus will also offer users the choice to hide the notch.
The OnePlus 6 might also come in an Avengers: Infinity War special edition after the company announced a formal partnership with Marvel studios. Last year, a similar partnership with Disney studios saw the launch of the Star Wars edition of the OnePlus 5T.
Furthermore, the OnePlus 6 will have a glass back as seen in the leaked live image shared by ITHome. The image shows the phone will have a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor and a vertically aligned dual camera setup placed in the center. The OnePlus logo is also seen etched into the glass back. Does that mean the phone will have wireless charging? There seems to be no rumour about that yet, but having a glass back may be an indication.
Additionally, images leaked on Chinese social networking site Weibo indicates the phone will be available in a new blue colour variant along with the usual black and white variants. The leaked image also indicated the alert slider will be in red. Yet another teaser posted by OnePlus themselves says the alert slider will have more functions apart from silencing the phone. A new feature called ‘slide to focus’ may be offered that will allow users to use the alert slider to adjust the camera focus with the alert slider.
Yet another teaser by OnePlus confirms the phone will have iPhone X-like gesture controls. Not much is known about this as of this moment, but the gestures will likely take precedence from the swipe gestures already available in the OnePlus 5 and the 5T.
Combining all the above facts, we get a good idea of how the OnePlus 6 will look like. It will have an iPhone X-like display notch with around 90 percent screen-to-body ratio, along with a glass back and gesture-based navigation controls.
How much power will the OnePlus 6 have?
Being a flagship killer, the OnePlus 6 will unsurprisingly sport flagship-grade hardware. But leaked images as well as official confirmation from the CEO tells us that the OnePlus 6 will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset along with up to 8GB of RAM and a whopping 256GB of storage. While the chipset and RAM isn’t surprising, the internal storage sure is. So far, OnePlus devices have gone all the way up to 128GB.
But the hardware spec is only part of the story. In a post on OnePlus forums, CEO Pete Lau wrote, “Choosing the best hardware is the easy part, the real challenge is in making the best hardware perform in ways that adds value to the experience of the user.”
Pete Lau also mentioned the focus of the OnePlus 6 will be on speed. “Fast is not just about shorter loading times, or top download speed, any OEM can achieve high numbers in one or two metrics. Fast is about creating a lasting impression of speed and smoothness, throughout all-day use, whether you’re recording 4K video or browsing Facebook. Fast is about ensuring there is less than a 1/1000 percent likelihood of your phone freezing, even under constant heavy use. To us, it’s about setting a higher standard,” Lau wrote in a blog post.
OnePlus has even created a special team in its R&D division called Team FSE (Fast, stable and efficient) with the sole purpose of ensuring the OnePlus 6 will be fast, stable and efficient.
What will the OnePlus 6 do for the cameras?
While OnePlus has not shied away from disclosing the hardware specs and the design elements of the OnePlus 6, the company has kept information about the cameras a secret. All we know so far is that the phone will have a vertically-aligned dual camera, as per the leaked photo of the phone posted by ITHome. OnePlus went from using a wideangle-telephoto lens combo to leverage optical zoom on the OnePlus 5 to using the second lens primarily for low-light shots in the OnePlus 5T. It remains to be seen what the OnePlus 6 will bring to the table, but considering that there are only so many ways to use the dual cameras right now, we might not be seeing that big of a change. What the company might do is improve the low-light capability of the phone even further.
There are also rumours of an infrared sensor on the front for more secure facial recognition and to offer augmented reality-based features like animated emojis.
Will there be any feature added to the OnePlus 6?
Apart from the all the features that OnePlus 6 will be improving upon, a new teaser video adds that the phone will have water resistance. So far, OnePlus has not provided waterproofing to its phones, despite a huge demand for it. It might give in to the demand with the OnePlus 6, but it remains to be seen whether it will be just splash proof or go all out water resistant.
When will the OnePlus 6 launch?
Now the big question. OnePlus has been hyping up the launch with teasers every other day, but has not formally disclosed the launch date. Usually, OnePlus announces the phone sometime in June. But considering the barrage of teasers the company has been posting along with lengthy articles explaining the features, we might see the OnePlus 6 come out sooner this year.
How much will the OnePlus 6 cost?
There is no official information about the price of the OnePlus 6. But if history is an indication, the prices are expected to rise. The original OnePlus One was just above Rs 20,000 while the OnePlus 2 took it a little higher. The OnePlus 3 and the 3T just remained shy of the Rs 30,000 mark while the OnePlus 5 and the 5T breach the 30k mark and was just shy of going above Rs 40,000. While the 6GB RAM variant (leaked in a photo) might remain in the Rs 30,000 bracket, the 256GB storage variant is expected to breach the Rs 40k mark and become the most expensive budget flagship ever.