OnePlus CEO Confirms 5G Phone to Launch by May-End 2019

OnePlus has already confirmed that it will launch a 5G phone next year. This phone will not be the OnePlus 7 - the successor to the OnePlus 6T - but instead it will be a completely separate device with different branding. The OnePlus 5G smartphone will be the first from the company to launch in UK in partnership with EE, and will be $200 to $300 costlier than the OnePlus 6T. Now, CEO Pete Lau confirms that this 5G device will be launched by the end of May 2019.

In an email interview with Cnet, Lau confirms that the 5G phone will launch before May 2019, and reiterates that will be at least $200 to $300 costlier than the OnePlus 6T due to expensive 5G components used in the device.

However, this price rise doesn't seem to dampen OnePlus' plans to deliver a 5G device, and its focus doesn't seem to be on large scale sales, but more towards learning from the new market demand. "With a focus on being one of the first companies to deliver a 5G phone, our engineers and product development team can receive an early start on how to best develop a premium 5G phone without compromise to design and user experience," Lau told the publication.

Lau adds that the company doesn't expect the 5G device to become an overnight success, and equate to huge sales at least in 2019. "It's still early stage. But by 2020 it could already be very different." Lau adds.

As mentioned, this new 5G device will spin out a completely new lineup from OnePlus, and won't be a successor to the OnePlus 6T. OnePlus did something similar with the OnePlus X launched in 2015, and that device never saw a successor, and was eventually killed off. We hope that this new device doesn't see the same fate.

As for the OnePlus 7, the smartphone is confirmed to be powered by the newly launched Snapdragon 855 SoC. The key feature of the Snapdragon 855 chip, is the 5G Snapdragon X50 modem for phones to connect to 5G wireless data networks with "multi-gigabit" mobile data speeds of up to 50 or 100 times faster than current 4G networks. We expect the 5G device to be powered with the same processor.