Recently, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau confirmed that his company is working towards a second 5G phone before the end of 2019. This 5G-enabled phone could possibly be the OnePlus 7T, as that is the next logical step for the company based on their own past trends.
In the past, we have seen live images of OnePlus’ “first 5G smartphone” leak online, showing off a phone with a circular rear camera module. But as we all know by now, OnePlus went on to release the OnePlus 7 Pro 5G as its first 5G smartphone. The phone from the live image did not match this smartphone, and the world eventually forgot about the existence of this prototype OnePlus device. Now, a new render has surfaced online which showcases this mystery smartphone in better detail.
Evan ‘@evleaks’ Blass has shared a render of this mystery device on Twitter, adding the tweet to the original thread by Ishan Agarwal that first pictured the smartphone as you can see below:
Evan did not offer any additional context to this render, so it would be conjecture to confidently presume that this would be the OnePlus 7T. A “T” variant has been part of the company’s model for the past two years, so the existence of the OnePlus 7T would not entirely be surprising. The original live image was shared in the month of December 2018 — OEMs plan smartphones earlier than the public thinks they do, and the 7T was very likely in development even before the launch of the OnePlus 7.
Surprising would be the fact that OnePlus is looking at a more radical departure from the design language of the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro for the 7T, if true. “T” iterations have been conservative with exterior changes, focusing much more on upgrading the internals of the previous non-T variant.
It remains to be seen if this is, in fact, the OnePlus 7T. There is no information available at this stage that indicates that this phone/prototype is still in development and not scrapped, or otherwise. With two dates for potential events revealed in the coming months, we might not have long to wait before we see more details about OnePlus' upcoming hardware.
