Apple introduced a squircle hump with three camera lenses on the iPhone 11 Pro, and abandoned it six years later with the redesigned iPhone 17 Pro. It seems OnePlus took some notes and plans to serve a slightly different take on Apple’s aesthetics atop its upcoming flagship phone.
What’s the big picture?
On the Chinese social media platform Weibo, an image allegedly showing the upcoming OnePlus 15 has been making the rounds lately. Now, I wouldn’t put too much trust in the veracity of this “leaked” render, but there are certainly some distinct OnePlus design elements here.
To start, the flattened side rails, a corner-aligned square camera plateau with rounder corners, and a metallic outline around the camera lenses are elements have been pulled straight from the OnePlus 13s. The choice of colors is also the usual OnePlus stuff that we have seen lately. Yet, the triangular layout of the camera lenses is a little too close to the signature iPhone look.
And were it not for the solid black background and the pill-shaped metalwork, one would mistake it for an iPhone at first glance. Now, OnePlus’ chief has expressed admiration for Apple in the past, and the brand has also courted heat from tech enthusiasts for aping Apple’s software. But the leaked renders take the concept of inspiration a little too far, and to an extent that it seems implausible that the company actually greenlit this design.
What else is on the table?
As per rumors, the next top-tier phone from OnePlus will come in Absolute Black, Dune, and Mist Purple shades. Unverified design leaks aside, the OnePlus 15 will draw power from Qualcomm’s latest and greatest silicon. The chipmaker announced its next flagship, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, earlier today, and will reveal more details about it in the coming weeks.
So far, leaks have predicted a 165Hz OLED screen for the upcoming OnePlus phone, and a step up in the charging department, reaching an impressive 120W, which is a massive leap compared to 40W on Apple’s iPhone 17 series phones. The battery capacity will reportedly climb up to an astounding 7,000 mAh on this one.
We are also hearing chatter about a self-developed imaging engine, now that OnePlus’ camera partnership with Hasselblad has come to an end. So far, the Chinese smartphone brand hasn’t made any official announcements regarding the OnePlus 15, so take all the aforementioned leaks with a healthy dose of skepticism.
