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There's a new OnePlus phone coming. Yes, yet another OnePlus.
As part of the company's 6th anniversary celebrations, it will be unveiling the Concept One at CES 2020 from 7 January.
So what can you expect from this new concept phone?
OnePlus Concept One: Design
Well, details are very thin on the ground at the moment. Even the official OnePlus invitation, pictured up top, doesn't give away any device form factor, only the capitalised words "Alternate Design. Alternate Future". Whatever that means.
However, let's backtrack and theorise a little bit. Just before this announcement the supposed OnePlus 8 leaked. But is OnePlus punch-hole camera phone actually the 8, or is it the Concept One? It depends just how 'alternate' the Concept One design goes.
It's not an impossible theory: companies, particularly Chinese makers, release annual concept phones to show-off what can be achieved. Take Vivo, for example, whose Apex Concept 2019 more-or-less became the Vivo NEX 3 a short number of months later. With these testbed concept devices, companies can show proof of concept.
That said, we suspect that OnePlus will go one bigger, breaking the boundaries of what the current OnePlus form brings. We'll have to wait and see on 7 January.
OnePlus Concept One: Specs
Just like the design, specification is an unknown. But let's take a think over the kind of next-gen tech that we're expecting in phones of the near future.
First up, the screen. We'd think, having pushed 90Hz in the OnePlus 7 Pro, 7T and 7T Pro, that it'll have to go one better. A 120Hz panel seems obvious, but that's already been done in phones before, such as the Razer Phone 2. Perhaps we can expect yet another refresh-rate jump?
Next up, the processor. The guts behind the experience. OnePlus has a history of using Qualcomm's Snapdragon platform, and while the Chinese company wasn't on hand at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit, the use of the forthcoming 865 processor in the Concept One would seem a no-brainer.
And what else? Perhaps a waterfall display? Under-screen camera, so no notch? Full screen fingerprint scanner login? Improved cameras? The list of possibles goes on and on.
OnePlus Concept One: Price & Release
Ok, so we're really reaching here. As the Concept One is, as its name suggests, a concept phone, there's a strong chance it'll never go on sale. Well, not in the form that we'll get to see at CES 2020.
But that doesn't mean it won't be a precursor to some of the exciting things that OnePlus has up its sleeve. Perhaps the OnePlus 8 and beyond will be bigger leaps than the small, three-monthly incremental upgrades we've been seeing.
More info on 7 January 2020 as we have it.
