What’s the story so far?

This December, mobile-first tech brand OnePlus will celebrate its tenth anniversary. In that decade, the company has matured from raucous maverick to a part of the establishment in the smartphone market. So, beyond its first folding phones, what’s next?

All eyes are turning towards the OnePlus 12 in anticipation of what it will bring to the table. If you’re looking to get up to speed, don’t worry – we’re laying out a place setting for you.

OnePlus 12 release date and price

• Q1 2024 global
• December 2023 China

In the past few years, OnePlus has settled on announcing its new mainline phones in January before opening pre-orders in the following months – Western Europe usually hears about purchase details in February, the United States in March.

We might see a turn for the OnePlus 12. Indian leaks blogger Yogesh Brar first brought up the general potential that the company will beat the new year’s fireworks with a December launch. Germany-based Max Jambor affirmed this notion in a later tweet.

As for pricing, no one has floated numbers yet, so all we have is what the OnePlus 11 sold for: the base model featuring 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage was priced $699​​​​​/£729 at launch while the 16/256 configuration was $799/£799.

Design

• Circular Hasselblad camera “hob”
• Curved-edge display

OnLeaks via SmartPrix, OnePlus

If you’ve seen a OnePlus 11 (right), then you have seen a OnePlus 12 (left), more or less. That’s if we can trust the renders we’ve seen from OnLeaks and we often do.

The circular “hob” or “stove” containing the rear cameras and Hasselblad branding gets carried over, but the contents within have shifted around. Instead of the three cameras and LED flash arranged in a square array, it seems that the OnePlus 12’s rumoured inclusion of a periscope-style telephoto camera has displaced the flash diode to the liminal space between the edge of the hob and the edge of the phone on the left. The classic OnePlus alert slider is also in play.

Brar mentions in an August X post that the OnePlus 12 will have an IP rating – the OnePlus 11 had an IP64.

Display

• 6.7-inch OLED screen
• QHD+ resolution at 120Hz

The OnePlus 11 had a 6.7-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 3216 x 1440 pixels and dynamic refresh rate support from 1Hz to 120Hz. Details on the OnePlus 12’s panel are loose and sparse at this point, but it sounds like we’re getting much the same deal there: 6.7 inches across, OLED technology, QHD+ resolution, and a max refresh rate of 120Hz.

Internal specs

• Early adopter of Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
• 16GB of RAM, 256GB of storage
• 5,400mAh battery, 50W wireless charging, 100W wired charging

OnePlus is in contention for being one of the first if not the first brand to use Qualcomm’s next-gen flagship hardware platform in a product. In this case, we expect it to be the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in the OnePlus 12. We’ll hear more about it at this year’s Snapdragon Tech Summit in November.

OnePlus has stuck with two memory configurations for its flagship phones the past few product cycles: 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage and 16/256GB. There hasn’t been much focus on the rumour trail about anything other than a 16/256 config for the OnePlus 12 – OnLeaks and SmartPrix claim LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 4.0 storage – but we’ll keep our suspicions alive.

Early speculation about battery capacity pegged it at 5,000mAh – a figure that hasn’t budged in recent updates. Late word from Yogesh Brar, however, indicates that there may finally be upward movement with a 5,400mAh tank this time around. Depending on the region, you may see wireless charging of up to 50W and wired charging of up to 100W.

Camera

• Main: 50MP Sony IMX900 series sensor
• Ultra-wide: 50MP
• Telephoto: 64MP Omnivision OV64B 3x w/ periscope
• Front: 32MP

OnLeaks and SmartPrix claim the most notable shifts will be in the cameras: the main camera will still be 50-megapixels in resolution, but the Sony IMX890 will be traded for an IMX900 series sensor. Our bet is the IMX989 that’s been used on the Oppo Find X6 and others, but it’s possible we may see a different or even brand-new sensor in that place.

Another trick that the OnePlus 12 may borrow from the Find X6 is the periscope telephoto lens, but paired with a 64-megapixel Omnivision OV64B instead – double the resolution of the OnePlus 11’s zoom camera and beating the 50-megapixel with Oppo – with what’s being reported as a 3x lens. The X6 was able to achieve 6x.

It’s also likely we’ll see last year’s 32-megapixel sensor in that punch hole at the top of the display.

OnePlus 12 rumours: What’s happened so far?

Here’s our intelligence timeline for the OnePlus 12:

21 August 2023: These key OnePlus 12 upgrades scream premium headset

We get affirmations on zoom factor on the telephoto camera and a battery capacity bump from Yogesh Brar.

20 July 2023: Disk and zoom specs revealed

OnLeaks and SmartPrix bring updated specifications to the speculation table, including a 3x optical zoom factor on the telephoto camera.

14 July 2023: Upgrading power specs?

Weibo stalwart Digital Chat Station (via Sohu) claims European and Canadian retail units might see a larger 5,500mAh battery in addition to the higher maximum charge rate of 150W by cable.

13 July 2023: December launch assurance

Max Jambor of Germany affirms a December launch for the OnePlus 12 in China (via MySmartPrice).

12 July 2023: Leaked OnePlus 12 renders come with rumours of new Hasselblad-tuned cameras

Our first renders of the phone come from Steve Hemmerstoffer, the person behind OnLeaks. A few updated specs are also included in this spill.

25 May 2023: OnePlus 12 might pack a periscope camera

Yogesh Brar relayed some key specs of what he claimed to be an engineering validation unit.