We’re still a few months away from the next OnePlus flagship launch, but that certainly hasn’t deterred a sea of leaks from flowing out and giving away almost everything there is to know about the OnePlus 9. Joining the leak spree, PhoneArena recently published a bunch of photos of the standard OnePlus 9, giving us a better idea of what the final design will look like.
From the front and sides, the OnePlus 9 doesn’t look all that different from the 8T in these alleged photos of a prototype unit. You’re getting the same hole-punch aligned to the top-left corner of the display and there’s once again no headphone jack to be found. The display seems to have slightly more rounded corners, but it’s hard to be certain given the poor quality of these images.
What’s really changed is the phone’s back. The camera lenses further stick out of the already protruding housing and have a metal ring encircling them, possibly just for aesthetics and to mimic recent iPhones. However, the arrangement looks closer to the Oppo Reno4 Pro, including the ‘Ultra Shot’ branding, which seems like the OnePlus take on Oppo’s ‘Ultra Steady.’ This is likely since both sister companies often share their underlying device development platforms.
It’s further speculated that the OnePlus 9 5G will get a 16MP camera on the front, while the main camera will have a 48MP sensor (even though the on-device specs tell a different tale). Some screenshots from the phone point to the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chip and a memory/storage configuration of 8/128GB, with more options possibly on the cards. The handset will come running Android 11 with the recently redesigned OxygenOS 11 running on top. Its display will continue to measure 6.55-inches, matching its predecessor in both the resolution and refresh rate.
These images closely align with the CAD renders that we saw earlier as part of a separate leak. At this point, we’re expecting OnePlus to add another phone to its main flagship lineup — the OnePlus 9E, which sounds like a step down from the standard 9. A previous report suggested that OnePlus could opt for an early release, moving up to March from its usual timeframe of May, which would probably be a move intended to counter Samsung’s earlier Galaxy S21 launch.
