OnePlus 3 was launched and released this year and to the company’s surprise, the demand for the phone was higher than the initial projections.
Now, there is news of a OnePlus 3T in the making, a phone that is basically meant to take the place of the flagship OnePlus 3. The story behind the phone is still a huge rumor, especially since the company had pledged to concentrate on releasing only one device each year. This came after the Chinese OEM confirmed that it will not be refreshing the mid-range OnePlus X, which was released towards the end of last year.
Given that the Chinese OEM is also looking to grow its stature not just in the smartphone world but also in the Android world, it might feel threatened by the sheer number of devices that close rivals have in the market. These include fellow Chinese makers such as Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and even Lenovo, leave alone the likes of Samsung, LG, Sony or even Apple.
Dubbed the flagship killer, it seems OnePlus might be tempted to come in with this rumored OnePlus 3T handset in order to compete with the likes of Xiaomi Mi Note 2 and Google Pixel XL, for instance. This would help the company buy time to get the next OnePlus 4 ready, which should be released somewhere in May 2017.
A look at OnePlus 3 will tell you that this company has the capabilities of building some amazing handsets. The phone further adds flair by packing all the latest hardware specs found in other flagships – a Snapdragon 820 SoC alongside a 6GB RAM, although the latter feature is on countable handsets. With the likes of Google Pixel XL, Xiaomi Mi 5S Plus, LeEco Le Max 2 and ASUS ZenFone 3 Deluxe shipping with the latest Snapdragon 821 SoC, the OnePlus 3 has begun taking the back seat as far as performance specs are concerned.
Since there are more than six months between now and the next OnePlus 4 release, the company feels that a OnePlus 3T flagship and not a midrange handset could do just fine. Given that the phone has almost the same name as its predecessor, there will probably be very small changes on the new phone.
According to reports from China, the OnePlus 3T will carry model number A3010, but it should keep the same 6GB RAM used on the original version. The design shouldn’t change much as well, with features such as fingerprint scanner, AMOLED display, dash charge, USB-C, as well as a 16MP/8MP camera combination expected to be retained. As for the OS, rumors say that Android 7.0 Nougat will power the OnePlus 3T out of the box.
Even though details about this supposed OnePlus 3T flagship are very shady, the phone is expected to be here before this year ends. We’ll keep you updated, keep following us!