OnePlus 5T launch event is set to begin in a few minutes, so keep refreshing the page to get all the updates here.
OnePlus 5T launch event has started, with company executives talking about how the OnePlus community influenced the user experience and UI design. Brian Yoon, the head of user experience at the company, spoke about how the company decided to keep OxygenOS similar to stock Android for ease of use, battery life, lack of bloatware, and memory optimisation, among other aspects. Yoon says that while Android is a great operating system, but could still use improvements on front such as reliability, efficiency, speed and user feedback. The company is introducing new features such as Gaming DND, duplicate apps for social media accounts, and OnePlus Reach to make data transfer easier. Yoon also revealed the Android Oreo update will be released for OnePlus 5 in January 2018, and in December 2017 for OnePlus 5T in beta.
Co-founder Carl Pei took the audience through the company’s journey, with a great launch but a poor 2015 with OnePlus 2 and OnePlus X. With learnings from the past year, the company focused its energies on creating phones the fans would love, resulting in OnePlus 3, OnePlus 3T and OnePlus 5. Pei said the new ‘T’ line launched roughly six months after the year’s flagship is aimed at providing customers the best product possible at the time.
The OnePlus 5T is widely expected to feature a bezel-less design and sport the largest display ever on a OnePlus handset at 6-inch. Of course, you can expect the 18:9 display to follow suit with the smartphone as well. The new smartphone will go on sale in India on November 21, but only for Amazon Prime subscribers, and even for them only limited quantities are expected. Keep refreshing the page to make sure you catch all the updates from the OnePlus 5T launch event in New York in real time.
For all fans, OnePlus 5T price is the biggest question everyone has, as some rumours suggest it will be priced same as the OnePlus 5. This would peg the OnePlus 5T price in India at Rs. 32,999 and Rs. 37,999 for the 6GB RAM and 8GB RAM variants, respectively. However, the company’s CEO in a tweet said component prices have been rising, so it’s not really clear which way the final pricing will go.
The company has been heavily teasing the OnePlus 5T on social media and has confirmed few features. One of them is presence of the headphone jack. Lau also confirmed the name of the handset weeks ahead of the launch. OnePlus has confirmed that the upcoming smartphone will feature the 3.5mm jack, making it one of the few flagships that still offer the port, given the iPhone and Pixel 2 range have done away with it. Going by the company’s naming, OnePlus has given the alphabet « T » to distinguish the new upgrades to its existing flagships. The company last year unveiled the OnePlus 3T as the new version of the OnePlus 3.
CEO Lau has also revealed the upcoming phone will not feature wireless charging, and users will have to settle with Dash Charge fast-charging. The company says the current wireless charging pads offer support a maximum of 15 watts of power, while Dash Charge goes up to 20 watts. Moreover, with wireless charging pads, the phone must be kept on the pad to charge, which means the user cannot use it play games or make calls and simultaneously charging it.
Going by some teaser images and leaks, the OnePlus 5T will be the company’s first smartphone to sport a bezel-less display with 18:9 aspect ratio. The thin bezels will shift the capsule-shaped fingerprint scanner to the back of the device. The smartphone is likely to have a portrait mode to capture images with bokeh effect. Some leaked images also highlight the absence of the home button at the front that has been a part of the OnePlus series since the OnePlus 2 launch in July 2015.
OnePlus co-founders Carl Pei and Pete Lau have been also teasing the camera on the new smartphone. The teasers have tipped a top-notch camera experience on the OnePlus 5T. The executives posted some camera samples that were supposed to have been captured from the new smartphone. If rumours are to be believed then the upcoming model will come with an upgraded dual-camera setup that would include optical image stabilisation (OIS) and a larger set of image sensors than what was featured on the OnePlus 5 earlier this year.
Prolific phone tipster Evan Blass had shared an image claiming to show the top front panel of the upcoming smartphone.
OnePlus 5T was listed by a Chinese retailer weeks before any official announcement. The leaked retailer listing claimed some of the specifications, such as 6-inch Quad-HD screen with 18:9 aspect ratio and it is said to be powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC clocked at up to 2.45GHz. It is likely to come in 6GB and 8GB RAM options with 64GB and 128GB storage respectively. On the camera front, the handset is said to sport a 20-megapixel rear camera coupled with another 16-megapixel sensor, making it a dual camera setup at the back. It is also said to have a 16-megapixel front camera.
These specifications all match with OnePlus 5; however, differences include a larger 3450mAh battery and a larger 6-inch display, while with some reports claiming a full-HD+ resolution of 1080×2160 pixels. It is also thicker than the OnePlus 5, weighing in at 164 grams. The thickness is said to be identical at 7.25mm, but the phone will be slightly wider and taller at 157×75.4mm. The handset is rumoured to support global 4G LTE bands and support 34 network bands.
OnePlus 5T also made an appearance at the AnTuTu benchmark suggesting the OnePlus A5010 model name, and listing similar specifications apart from a 20-megapixel front camera, and a boost of the rear camera. The presence of Android 8.0 Oreo on the OnePlus 5T is expected to make the overall package an attractive piece of hardware. However, a recent GFXBench listing says the handset will come with Android 7.1.1 Nougat instead of the new build of Google’s mobile OS, but it may just be a test device and not the retail model.
The Chinese company is heavily stressing on the fact that the community was involved in a large way when it comes to the OnePlus 5T development. We can believe that the company took the feedback from customers and has worked to improve some features.
