OnePlus has really disrupted the market with its series of very good, but quite reasonably priced phones. The OnePlus 5 continues this tradition, albeit at a price that’s closing in on its more expensive rivals – if they weren’t galloping away towards an even higher price, that is.
Still, OnePlus’ motto is “never settle” and that gives us licence to think about next year’s OnePlus 6. As you might expect, firm details are pretty sparse at this point, but there’s a few interesting discussion points – and of course, we’ll continue to update this as leaks and credible rumours come through.
OnePlus 6: Rumours
As you might imagine, there aren’t really any rumours yet – though during a recent Reddit AMA, founder Carl Pei did joke that the rumour mill would start spinning when he asked a user if they prefered the fingerprint scanner on the front or back of a handset. At the very least, you have to say the company is open-minded its designs, but you’d hardly call relocating the fingerprint reader a commitment.
Other than that, expect the phone to continue with a dual lens camera, given the success of the model on the OnePlus 5. We’d expect a screen resolution upgrade this time to 2K to help VR content shine, but we’ve been expecting that for some time now, so who knows?
If you’re concerned that the OnePlus 4 will follow in the footsteps of Apple and Motorola in ditching the headphone jack, we think you’re safe. That’s not to say that OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei hasn’t considered it – it’s just that he putt the matter to his Twitter followers, who roundly dismissed the idea:
OnePlus 6: Release date
Let’s take a look at the history book: The OnePlus One launched in April 2014. The OnePlus 2 followed in July 2015, and the OnePlus 3 emerged in June 2016. The OnePlus 3T was bucked the trend with November 2016, but it was an incremental update, before the OnePlus 5 arrived in June 2017.
With that in mind, June-July 2018 seems like a good bet – unless they treat us to a OnePlus 5T.
OnePlus 6: Price
The OnePlus series has undergone some serious price inflation since it first launched. The OnePlus One launched at £229. The OnePlus 2 nudged it up to £239, before the OnePlus 3 pushed it to £309. Then Brexit pushed the price of that up to £329, before the OnePlus 3T appeared at £399. The OnePlus 5 arrived at a price of £450.
In a recent Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), the company suggested it would consider making a smartphone that costs over $800 (~£612). During the same AMA, CEO Carl Pei quite reasonably added: “Costs are increasing YoY, we only make flagship products, and we don’t believe in selling products at a loss.”
With these two factors in mind, you’d expect the gradual inflation to continue – but crucially for the company to remain competitive compared to other handsets. With that in mind, my prediction is a handset that costs £500 when it launches – but as ever, we’ll revise this when more details on the specification come through.
