OnePlus is widely expected to release a OnePlus 7T series of devices this fall, maybe as soon as mid-October. But this is the first time that OnePlus already launched three phones in the first half of the year, featuring two distinct designs. The OnePlus 7 looks just like OnePlus 6T, although it does pack almost the same hardware as the all-screen OnePlus 7 Pro and OnePlus 7 Pro 5G.
Those two, however, feature all-screen displays with slide-up selfie cameras. So the obvious question is, what will OnePlus change for the OnePlus 7T? It turns out the answer may have been right in front of us.
It was just before Christmas when Ishan Agarwal posted this tweet showing a OnePlus design like no other:
EXCLUSIVE! Here's your first look at an upcoming OnePlus Device I don't know much about. This image shows the device in prototype/designing stage and it is not final but this is probably how the device may end up looking. That's Pete (CEO of OP) in the img and the device itself. pic.twitter.com/Yau9EsgSDy
— Ishan Agarwal (@ishanagarwal24) December 19, 2018
It wasn’t clear what kind of prototype we were looking at, but the rear panel featured a multi-lens circular camera module that’s never been seen on other OnePlus phones. At the time, we thought that was one of the proposed designs for the OnePlus 7, and we soon forgot about it once the Pro’s design started leaking.
But Evan Blass just replied to that tweet, posting schematics for a OnePlus-branded phone that matches the one in the image above:
This might very well be the OnePlus 7T Pro that we’re looking at, and that circular camera module would certainly give the phone its own identity, allowing buyers to differentiate it from the OnePlus 7 Pro.
As you can see in the top image, the OnePlus 7 Pro features a vertical triple-lens camera, placed right in the middle of the phone. By switching to a circular array, OnePlus might be able to maximize the internal space of the handset and give the battery a small boost. That’s just speculation at this point, of course, as we don’t know much about this fall’s new OnePlus phones.
OnePlus won’t be the only handset vendor going for round camera modules, with Huawei’s Mate 30 Pro also expected to feature a similar setup.
