Here’s everything we know about the new OnePlus phones

OnePlus has an upcoming event on March 23rd, where it’ll be formally announcing the OnePlus 9, and OnePlus 9 Pro. As with any smartphone event these days, there’s a ton of information about what will be revealed at the event, thanks in no small part to OnePlus itself doling out pieces of news over the past couple of weeks.

Confirmed by OnePlus

OnePlus has been in the habit lately of trying to build up suspense for its events, which is why you see it and its executives just tweeting out information about the phones. Here’s what we’ve learned from them:

Chargers? In the box

OnePlus’s CEO, Pete Lau, has confirmed on a forum post that the company will be including a charger in the box with the 9-series phones, instead of going the route that Apple and Samsung have taken.

The Pro will have 50W wireless charging

OnePlus has let The Verge try the 9 Pro’s 50W wireless charging, and it is indeed fast, charging the phone from 1 to 100% in 43 minutes. If you prefer charging with a cable, both the Pro and regular 9 will support 65W wired charging as well.

OnePlus has already shown off the design

Input has a collection of all the images that OnePlus has posted of the 9 Pro on Twitter, and there’s not a ton left to the imagination. It does, in fact, look like a smartphone, with USB-C port on the bottom, and a camera bump.

Image: OnePlus

OnePlus is focusing on cameras

We know that the legendary camera company Hasselblad will be working on providing “color expertise” for the phones’ cameras. OnePlus has been dropping subtle hints about the collaboration, like centering its marketing material around the moon (when Apollo astronauts went to the moon, they took Hasselblad cameras), and releasing pictures of the phones, which have the word “Hasselblad” written on the camera modules. And having a Hasselblad section on the phone’s launch page. Okay, maybe it’s not so subtle.

When it comes to the capabilities of those cameras, we can look at an interview Pete Lau did with TechRadar. He talks about the phones working with Sony to make a custom IMX789 sensor (something he’s also tweeted about), and mentions that they will be capable of shooting 4K at 120FPS.

What the camera capabilities of the 9 Pro versus the regular 9 are will probably have to wait for the official announcement — but the pictures released by OnePlus show that the Pro seems to have four cameras, where the regular only has three. As with past OnePlus phones, at least one of the cameras will be an ultra-wide.

Of course, the phones will be 5G-capable

The OnePlus 8 series had 5G, and the 9 series will too, as indicated by the “5G” superscript on OnePlus’s announcement images.

There will be a smartwatch launched as well

OnePlus has already released a teaser video of the device, and confirmed that it won’t be running Google’s Wear OS.

The phones will use the Snapdragon 888

OnePlus is continuing its tradition of including Qualcomm’s flagship-class processor, according to tweets from Pete Lau and the OnePlus account.

What we know about the displays

Pete Lau also tweeted out most of the details about the 9 Pro’s display:

LTPO displays can run at different refresh rates depending on the content being displayed, meaning that the OnePlus 9 screens should be able to sip power when displaying static images, but still provide smooth animations at 120Hz when you’re actually using the phone. PC Mag has already seen in-depth testing results from the Pro’s screen, showing its power usage, and 360Hz touch-polling rate, which should lead to improved responsiveness.

Also new to the Pro is a 10-bit display which should, in theory, show colors more accurately. Otherwise, it’s packing many of the same features as the screen on the OnePlus 8 Pro, which is not a complaint. Oh, unless you don’t like big screens — according to PC Magazine, the Pro’s display is 6.7 inches, the same size as an iPhone Pro Max or Galaxy Note 20.

Colors

We’ve officially seen the Pro’s Morning Mist (silver) and regular OnePlus 9’s Winter Mist (purple) colors, but…

Left to the Imagination (and leaks)

… there have also been leaks showing off other colors, like a forest green on the Pro, and a blue for the regular OnePlus 9. And, of course, there are black versions of each phone as well (I anxiously await to see if OnePlus makes a big deal about it in the presentation).

The Regular 9 will have a (slightly) smaller screen than the Pro

While OnePlus officially shared the Pro’s screen size with PC Magazine, the details of the regular 9 weren’t mentioned. Slashleaks indicates that it’ll be 6.55 inches, and have a slightly lower resolution of 1080 x 2400, as opposed to the 1440 x 3216 reported for the Pro by PC Magazine.

A third phone?

There are also rumors of a third phone, which may be called the 9R or the 9 Lite. Android Central reports that it may have a stepped-down, Snapdragon 865 processor, but apart from that not much else is known. Will it actually happen? We’ll have to see!

It seems that OnePlus and its CEO are going to be posting more details on Twitter during the lead-up to the event, but at this point it seems like we’ve got a good outline of what the phones will be like. Now, it’s just waiting until the 23rd, at 10AM ET, to have the details filled in.