OnePlus Confirms 5G Phone, But it Will Not Cost Cheap
Hot on the heels of yesterday’s Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit, OnePlus has announced its support for 5G network. The summit hosted major telecom players as they gathered to celebrate the launch of 5G technology; Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 platform and 5G modems.
OnePlus CEO, Pete Lau, spoke about the company’s upcoming phone in an interview with The Verge. It’s obvious that the phone in question here is the next OnePlus flagship – OnePlus 7. The Shenzen-based phone manufacturer confirmed that its working on 5G phone.
The news from this revelation is the price, which is expected to get a hike. Lau revealed that while it’s hard to pin down a price-point currently, a $200-$300 increase is a safe estimation.
The current OnePlus flagship which launched in October is priced at $549. While that’s a huge advantage in OnePlus’ favor, it seems that the gap between OnePlus and competition will narrow next year. The OnePlus brand has always been about beastly specs and low price – cheaper when compared to similar spec’ed phones in the market.
For example, just two years ago, OnePlus 3 was announced at a price of $399 when most flagships of the same internal hardware were well above $599.
While we hope the price jump isn’t as significant as the current estimate, 5G is likely to drive prices up.
It has also been confirmed that OnePlus’ 5G phone will operate on sub-6GHz spectrum available on the 5G network. The more speedy mmWave network type presents challenges, more specifically in designing a phone that also looks good, OnePlus explained.
On a similar note, Samsung announced plans to release two 5G phones within the first half of 2019, during this week’s summit.
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