Most people haven’t even had a chance to check out what the new OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro bring to the table, but the rumour train is unrelenting.
If OnePlus sticks to its current playbook, the company has another pair of flagships still to push out before 2020 is over, in the OnePlus 8T and OnePlus 8T Pro – here’s what they’re likely to bring to the table.
When will the OnePlus 8T launch?
The economic effect of the global pandemic has scattered mobile manufacturers’ strategy and marketing plans like bowling pins but if OnePlus can steel its resolve, we’ll still likely see at least one, if not two T-Series devices in the latter half of 2020.
The company first introduced its T-model phones with 2016’s OnePlus 3T. Each ‘T’-based OnePlus aims to improve on the company’s existing flagship that same year without rewriting the rulebook. Although iterative, each ‘T’ phone irons out some of the kinks of their direct predecessors and keeps the internals feeling fresh and competitive.
Each year since the October launch of the 3T, OnePlus has kept its release schedule pretty regular, with the OnePlus 5T (there was no OnePlus 4 or 4T) arriving in November of 2017 and the OnePlus 6T launching in October 2018.
By the time it was the 7T-Series’ turn, the company changed things up somewhat, with a late-September 2019 unveiling for base OnePlus 7T, followed by a two-week hiatus before revealing the OnePlus 7T Pro.
Even so, there’s still a general consistency to OnePlus release pattern that we expect to endure with the OnePlus 8T and 8T Pro – most likely making their debut in October 2020.
How much will the OnePlus 8T cost?
There’s something to be said for OnePlus in 2020. In many ways, the company is now releasing the very types of products that it originally set out to try and subvert. OnePlus no longer makes ‘flagship killers’, it now just makes flagships and as such, prices its products as such.
All that said, despite a steady price rise over the years, even the company’s most expensive devices manage to undercut rival phones from the likes of Apple and Samsung, without skimping on features or quality.
Related: Best smartphone 2020
The OnePlus 6T and 7 both launched at £499, while the 7 Pro pushed the boat out by adding another £150 on top, then the 7T Series both added £50 to the respective price tags of both the 7 and 7 Pro, while this year’s current OnePlus offerings hike the pricing yet further – £50 more for the OnePlus 8 and £100 more for the OnePlus 8 Pro, bringing current base prices to £599 and £799.
Based on OnePlus’ pricing strategy between the last year’s 7 and 7T devices, as well as the further increases for this year’s 8 Series, there’s the possibility of an additional £50 being added to the enhanced 8T and 8T Pro (making the base 8T as expensive as last year’s 7 Pro), coming in at £649 and £849, respectively.
What features will the OnePlus 8T have?
At this early stage, there’s little-to-no direct information about either the 8T or 8T Pro, however, there are enough clues to help assemble a probable spec sheet.
The cameras will likely see an upgrade (although it may be in software-only), as will the charging tech, namely on the base 8T, bringing it closer to that of its ‘Pro’ sibling, with support for fast wireless charging – something the OnePlus 8 currently lacks.
Perhaps the most surprising move will be the continued use of Qualcomm’s existing flagship Snapdragon 865 chipset, in place of an upgraded ‘Plus’ model – as was the case last year. For reference, the 7T Series moved up from the 7 Series’ Snapdragon 855 to the enhanced Snapdragon 855+.
This hypothesis comes as a result of a statement from the CMO of fellow phone-maker, Meizu, who (as reported by MyDrivers) in April published on Chinese social media platform Weibo, stating that Qualcomm isn’t planning on releasing a Snapdragon 865+ chipset any time soon.
This seems credible enough, simply because of Meizu’s presence as an established smartphone manufacturer, however, there is some contradictory information out there that might suggest otherwise.
Benchmarking information found on the Geekbench website, tied to the rumoured Galaxy Note 20, highlights a variant of the Snapdragon 865 running at a notably higher clock speed than the model currently powering phones like the OnePlus 8 Pro.
The Galaxy Note20 + will use the Snapdragon 865+ processor. Why do you say this? Because from the Geekbench results, we found that the processor’s large core frequency is as high as 3.09GHz, and the 865 frequency is 2.84GHz, so we have reasons to think that it is 865+ . pic.twitter.com/I9bU87RPRD
— Ice universe (@UniverseIce)
April 2, 2020
The ‘+’ and ‘G’ variants of Qualcomm’s mobile chips come with additional performance overhead, primarily built with gaming in mind – a higher clock speed like the one spotted by known-leaker IceUniverse casts some doubt over the definitive nature of the statement from Meizu’s CMO.
