OnePlus 7 Said to Not Support 5G, Separate 5G Phone to Launch Next Year

Earlier this year, OnePlus revealed its plans to announce a 5G phone next year, and reiterated that claim at the Qualcomm 4G/5G summit last month. Now, the company has again confirmed that this 5G phone won't be an OnePlus 6T successor, but it will be a completely different phone with a different branding. This device will not be the company's next flagship, and will be launched in the beginning of 2019. There isn't clarity on what this 5G device will be called, but OnePlus has confirmed that the OnePlus 6T successor (may be called OnePlus 7) won't have 5G enabled.

CNET reports that a OnePlus spokesperson has confirmed that the OnePlus 7 won't have 5G enabled to keep the costing competitive. Instead, the company will keep its promise of 5G by launching a separate series early 2019. It is still a mystery whether OnePlus will launch this phone alongside the OnePlus 7 or launch it earlier on in a separate event. The report speculates that OnePlus could launch the 5G device at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona.

At the OnePlus 6T event in New York, CEO Pete Lau had confirmed that the OnePlus 5G-capable smartphone will debut in the first half of next year. "I can give an overview and say that in the first half of the year [2019] we will have a 5G product," he added. "With our closest of partnerships with Qualcomm we will work to try to bring 5G technology available as soon as possible to our community and users."

Furthermore, the report states that OnePlus 7 and OnePLus 7T will not have 5G enabled, as this will increase the cost of the devices by a significant margin. All of this means that OnePlus will launch three phones in 2019, and not two like the recent years. There is no clarity on what this new series will be called.