With the release of the OnePlus 7 Pro back in 2019, however, it appears the company has marked the onset of a roadmap featuring a gradual shift towards a more traditional business model in the flagship smartphone manufacturing space. The OnePlus 8 series, today, is no doubt, one of the most hotly anticipated smartphone launches from the OnePlus brand worldwide, scheduled for 14th April, this year. The company, however, has already made it perfectly clear that the 8 series, by no means is going to be a product aimed at the market space existing right in between ridiculously expensive flagships and the non-flagship high-end phones. Coming in at an as-of-now-touted less than 1000$ (~75000 INR) price tag, it will be cheaper compared to a Samsung Galaxy S20 5G, but to what degree is yet to be determined.
Before OnePlus 8 Series – How it started?
OnePlus Technologies Co. Ltd., better known as OnePlus is a Chinese smartphone manufacturing company owned by BBK Electronics based in Shenzhen, Guangdong. Founded by Pete Lau and Carl Pei on 16th December 2013, the brand currently has many highly successful smartphone models under its belt and officially serves in over 34 countries worldwide. Popular models include the OnePlus 6, 6T, 7, 7T and 7 Pro along with many more. OnePlus has long been the mainstay and the most popular name in a market space where flagship-level hardware is merged with relatively affordable price tags, resulting in excellently crafted smartphones that have the added benefit of not completely breaking the bank.
With the official release date for the OnePlus 8 closing in, leaks regarding the specifications and design of the phone have been pouring in at a steady pace, with some confirmed and others still in the speculator stage. OnePlus CEO, Pete Lau has confirmed that the OnePlus 8 series smartphones will be shipping with the latest Snapdragon 865 SoC with added software optimizations from OnePlus to enable faster Read/Write speeds than its predecessors and will come in two flavours, the OnePlus 8 Pro and a relatively more affordable OnePlus 8.
Platform
The OnePlus 8 series will be featuring the Snapdragon 865 processor which is based on the 7nm lithography. Featuring 8 cores (1×2.84 GHz Kryo 585, 3×2.42 GHz Kryo 585 & 4×1.8 GHz Kryo 585) and the Adreno 650 GPU, it will be running Android 10 as its operating system. The clock speed of a set of cores intentionally differs from the other set of cores as a technique for optimizing battery performance (big. LITTLE technology) while all cores share the same memory, making swapping a task between each other, no problem at all. The lower clocked cores utilize less power to function and are relatively slower, hence take care of day-to-day activities such as browsing the web, watching a movie, etc. The higher clocked cores are faster and more power-hungry and are therefore useful in taking care of more resource-intensive activities such as playing a fast-paced high-resolution game.
Memory and Design
In terms of memory, the phone is expected to feature an 8GB and a 12GB option in the RAM department. It is also set to launch with LPDDR5 memory which is 45% more power-efficient than the previous generation LPDDR4 RAM, while being faster at the same time, having a maximum theoretical transfer speed of 6400 Mbps and a voltage swing as low as 0.3V as compared to a 4266 Mbps maximum transfer speed on the LPDDR4 platform. It is expected to launch with a 128GB and 256GB UFS 3.0 internal storage option with no expandable storage.
Both phones are expected to feature an aluminium frame design and glass body with colour options including Onyx Black, Glacial Green, and Ultramarine Blue for the OnePlus 8 Pro and Glacial Green, Interstellar Glow, and Onyx Black for the OnePlus 8 model. Leaked renders, on the other hand, suggest that the 8 Pro will be featuring a quad-camera setup and hole-punch display (top left) while the 8 renders suggest a similar picture but with triple cameras instead of a quad-camera setup and smaller screen dimensions.
Camera and Display
The OnePlus 8 Pro is expected to feature a 6.78” QHD+ (1440 x 3120 pixels) fluid-AMOLED display with 19.5:9 aspect ratio and a pixel density of ~ 507 PPI. The screen is also expected to have a refresh rate of 120 Hz with HDR10+ support. The OnePlus 8, on the other hand, will be featuring the same fluid-AMOLED display technology but will be smaller, coming in at 6.55” with a relatively lower resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels and an aspect ratio of 20:9. The display is also touted to be having a refresh rate of 90Hz, ~ 402 PPI pixel density and HDR10+ support.
The quad-camera technology expected to be shipping with the OnePlus 8 Pro is cutting-edge, to say the least. It will feature a 48 MP main shooter with Optical Image Stabilization, an 8 MP, f/2.4 telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom, a 48 MP ultrawide and a 5 MP depth sensor. The OnePlus 8, on the other hand, is expected to feature a triple camera setup with a similar 48 MP main shooter with Optical Image Stabilization as the 8 Pro, an 8 MP ultrawide and a 2 MP macro camera. Both the 8 and the 8 Pro are expected to ship with identical 16 MP selfie camera.
Battery and Charging
The OnePlus 8 Pro is rumoured to launch with a 4510 mAh battery with 30W Warp charge 30T and 30W wireless charging support. The OnePlus 8, on the other hand, is expected to feature a relatively smaller battery (in terms of capacity), coming in at 4300 mAh. The charging technology for the OnePlus 8 is, however, the same as that in the OnePlus 8 Pro, with 30W Warp Charge 30T and 30W wireless charging support. In our opinion, the battery is decently sized and will do a great job in giving a full day of power to regular phones with 60Hz screens. However, on a 120Hz QHD+, or a 90Hz screen for that matter, 4510/4300 mAh might fall short of the said objective. It is little more than speculation at this point but the full extent of said deficiency, or lack thereof, is something that only time will tell.
Other Features
Except for the aforementioned features, the OnePlus 8 series is also expected to pack in some serious technology under the hood. The 8 Pro is expected to have 2160p video recording capabilities at 30/60Hz, Bluetooth 5.0, 5G and NFC support. It will also be including USB 3.1 (Type-C) support which is a welcome addition to an already vast array of cutting edge technology, as the USB 3.1 is about 10x faster than USB 2.0 where the latter still remains the most popular data transfer standard in mobile devices despite the technology having been released two decades ago. Both the 8 Pro and the 8 will be featuring optical, under-display fingerprint sensors, Gorilla Glass 6 protection for the screen and Gorilla Glass 5 for the rest of the glass body. The OnePlus 8 Pro is rumoured to be shipping with an IP68 resistance to water and dust. The 8, on the other hand, hasn’t been rumoured to be featuring any such protection.
Do let us to know your expectations about OnePlus 8 Series!!
