OnePlus made a splash with its first foldable phone last year, the OnePlus Open. Not only does the Open offer some of the best specifications and camera hardware, but it also has excellent software to back it up, too. Now, a new OnePlus flip phone rumor claims the Chinese tech brand is the next to try and break into the clamshell foldable game.
A tipster who goes by Smart Pikachu on Weibo claims that Oppo’s next flip phone will pack both a macro lens and a telephoto camera and that OnePlus is getting in on the action, too. For those who don’t know, this is pretty standard practice for OnePlus as a subsidiary of Oppo, bringing the latter’s rebranded devices to international markets.
The translated text is a little tricky to decipher, but presumably, we’ll be seeing a similar launch strategy to the Oppo Find N3 and OnePlus Open. They’re effectively the same phone, with slightly different software, targeted at different markets. We’d hazard a guess that Oppo is planning on rebranding and launching the Find N5 Flip as the yet-to-be-named OnePlus flagship flip phone.
Previous leaks suggested that Oppo had canceled the Find N5 Flip, but now it appears that might not be the case. The Weibo post also notes that Oppo is about six months behind the competition with its flip phone, so we could be waiting for quite a while before this one materializes.
Flip phones are gaining popularity, with Nubia recently releasing the cheapest model we’ve seen so far, and of course, Samsung dominating the market with its popular Galaxy Z Flip series. One thing that these phones typically lack, though, is a telephoto camera. If this rumor proves true, it could mean that OnePlus will offer the best camera performance in this form factor, just as it did with the Open last year.
Clearly, it’s early days and plenty could change before we get an official release, but the OnePlus Flip rumor is an exciting development nonetheless. If you’re looking for a foldable that you can buy right now, why not check out our guide to the best foldable phones on the market? Or, if you want to see what the other big Android companies are up to, see our guides to the best Samsung phones, the best Xiaomi phones, and the best Google Pixel phones.