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We're already seeing the effects of the Oppo merger on OnePlus' next flagship.
Ron Amadeo - Jan 5, 2022 1:00 am UTC

Enlarge / The OnePlus 10 Pro.

OnePlus

Official product news about the upcoming OnePlus 10 Pro has begun to trickle out. For now, we have an incomplete overview with some pictures and specs, while things like a price, release date, and the finer details will have to wait for later.

First up: specs. OnePlus 10 Pro officially has the brand-new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC. This is Qualcomm's new flagship SoC for 2022, and it features a single ARM Cortex X2 core, three medium Cortex A710 CPUs, and four small Cortex A510 CPUs, all built on a 4 nm process. OnePlus isn't saying how much RAM and storage the 10 Pro has, but the 9 Pro came with 8GB or 12GB of RAM and 128GB or 256GB of storage. The company confirmed the display is 120 Hz but didn't give a size, though rumors say it's 6.7-inch, the same as the OnePlus 9 Pro. That fits the now-official dimensions, which are 163 × 73.9 × 8.55 mm.

The battery is officially 5000 mAh, an upgrade over the 9 Pro's 4500 mAh battery. Considering the similar dimensions between the two phones, this is a welcome upgrade in battery density. OnePlus is also up to a whopping 80 W "SuperVOOC" quick charging now—an improvement over last year's 65 W "Warp Charge." OnePlus doesn't give any indication of what kind of charge time we can expect, but 65 W could charge the 9 Pro's 4500 mAh battery from 0-100 in a half-hour. Charging speed is still outpacing battery growth, so the 10 Pro should charge in under a half-hour. Just like last year, wireless charging is 50 W.

Enlarge / Another look at that wacky camera block.

OnePlus

OnePlus has pitched itself as a scrappy startup in the past, but it's actually owned by the Chinese company BBK Electronics, one of the world's largest smartphone manufacturers. Just like General Motors, BBK has multiple brands (OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo, Realme, and iQOO) targeting different markets, and they share plenty of parts and engineering. While OnePlus and Oppo have always shared some engineering resources, last year it was announced OnePlus would actually be folded into Oppo.

The Oppoization of OnePlus is going to be a major narrative for the OnePlus 10 Pro. We can already see a bit of it with the change from "Warp Charging" (OnePlus branding) to "SuperVOOC" (Oppo branding). But what really matters is the software, which will see OnePlus adopt Oppo's Color OS Android skin with a few custom tweaks rather than the separate codebases the two companies were running. We got a glimpse of this design direction via the OnePlus 9's Android 12 update, and the reviews were not kind. But we'll see what the first new phone software brings.

As for the design, the camera block is really the only area where Android OEMs allow themselves to differentiate from the norm. This year, OnePlus is going with this square-ish design that wraps around the side of the phone. It looks a lot like the Galaxy S21 Ultra camera block, except that it's wrapped around the entire corner. Inside the camera block are three cameras and an LED flash. Right now, OnePlus is only disclosing megapixel counts, and those are 48MP, 50MP, and 8MP.

Enlarge / This is not an official picture, but OnLeaks' clearly accurate leak from November is still our only look at the front of the phone.

We don't actually have a picture of the front yet, so above is OnLeak's unofficial render from a few months ago. This has the camera hole on the left side instead of the middle. Other than that, it looks like every other Android phone on the market.

It might be because of Oppo's influence, but OnePlus' launch is all sorts of weird this year. The phone is launching in China first on January 11. We don't have a price yet, but OnePlus' flagship prices have gone up every year so far, and the 9 Pro was $969. There's also no word on a US release date yet.