Get your first look at a OnePlus 9 prototype

  • Real OnePlus 9 photos! There’s not much new.
  • The back has a new camera block and a funky prototype logo.
  • The “Ultrashot” camera has three lenses.
  • The bottom edge has everything you would expect.

2021 is fast approaching, and in the world of Android, that means a new Qualcomm chip and a new round of phone upgrades. OnePlus will be one of the earlier companies out of the gate with the OnePlus 9, a device that leaked pretty extensively at PhoneArena over the weekend.

First up, PhoneArena has hands-on pictures with a prototype of the phone. The front design doesn’t look that much different from the current OnePlus 8 Pro, with a hole punch camera and slim bezels all around. (Here’s hoping we’ll get an under-display camera with the OnePlus 9T later in the year.) PhoneArena says the display is flat—remember, this is the OnePlus 9, not the more expensive OnePlus 9 Pro, which will most likely have a curved screen.

The back has a chunky, rectangular camera block with two big camera lenses and a third smaller lens. Next to the lenses is an LED flash and new “Ultrashot” branding. Also on the back is a strange logo in place of the OnePlus branding; the company apparently uses a fake logo on prototypes, similar to what we’ve seen on Google devices.

PhoneArena also has a slew of specs for the device. The phone has a 120Hz, 6.55-inch 2400×1080 OLED display, the new Snapdragon 888 SoC, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 4,500mAh battery. Keep in mind that this is a prototype, so the specs could change. There will also probably be a OnePlus 9 Pro, which OnLeaks claims has a 6.7-inch display. It’s a good bet the resolution is somewhere around 3168×1440, too, like the OnePlus 8 Pro. In the past, the OnePlus Pro model has enjoyed a refresh rate advantage over the base model, so does the OnePlus 9 having a 120Hz display mean the 9 Pro will hit 144Hz?

The rest of the phone has everything about where you would expect. There’s an earpiece at the top and a volume rocker and mute switch on the side. The bottom houses a USB-C port, a speaker, and a SIM tray that looks like it has some amount of water resistance thanks to a rubber gasket.

The phone is expected to be out sometime in March.

Listing image by PhoneArena

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1729678