OnePlus is starting the hype train early this year as it plans the OnePlus 11 and OnePlus buds Pro 2 event for 2023.
The company has shared its plans to hold an event in New Dehli called Cloud 11, where it plans to “elevate the user experience from Cloud 9 to Cloud 11.” It sounds like classy stuff, and we’re set to see the OnePlus 11 flagship and the successor to the OnePlus Buds Pro, aptly called OnePlus Buds Pro 2.
The stylized image of the OnePlus 11 sent alongside the event announcement confirms earlier renders, which suggested OnePlus would go for a more outrageous camera bump this year.
OnePlus 11 leaks from early December.
What’s missing from the new picture is the Hasselblad logo. Hopefully, this is because of the image’s darkness. At the launch of the OnePlus 10T, the company promised its next flagship would include the final iteration of its Hasselblad-co-created camera. It also implied that the ‘Pro’ named phones would get the Hasselblad optics, hence why the OnePlus 10T didn’t get the Swedish camera company’s blessing.
To me, this suggests a second OnePlus 11 Pro will come later in the year, which theoretically makes more sense with the company’s naming scheme. What did the ‘T’ ever stand for anyways? That said, it’s too early to tell, and I’m probably reading too much into it. But if you’re into OnePlus rumours, feel free to come down this rabbit hole with me.
For context, the company’s 2022 flagship, the OnePlus 10 Pro, came out at the start of the year in China and then hit the West at the end of March. In the Summer, the OnePlus 10T followed with a better chipset, modem and faster-charging specs for a lower price.
The company received flak from the media for releasing the phone in China early. Western reviewers like MKBHD chose to review the eastern version of the phone in January and not the global version that OnePlus sent to the press in March, leading to a bad review. OnePlus seems to have learned from that and is now including all markets in the initial launch this year.
Regarding the ‘Pro’ vs ‘standard’ OnePlus flagships. If OnePlus released its lower-end flagship at the start of the year as the OnePlus 11, it would allow the second flagship released later in the year to be a stronger package since it would get a better chip, the company’s flagship build quality and other R&D improvements.
It’s also worth noting that OnePlus promised that all its top phones from 2023 would receive four years of Android updates and five years of security patches.