OnePlus 11 rumored to get a ceramic finish and 16GB of RAM
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The OnePlus 11 is one of the main flagship smartphones we expect to launch sometime in 2023, and we’ve got some new information on what the handset will bring when it sees the light of day.
According to the well-known tipster Digital chat station (opens in new tab) (through Pocket ribbon (opens in new tab)), the OnePlus 11 gets a metal frame with a ceramic body, while the RAM is boosted to 16 GB. The OnePlus 10 Pro peaked at 12 GB of RAM.
Another upgrade is apparently on the way: according to the same source, the OnePlus 11 will be one of the first phones to get UFS (Universal Flash Storage) 4.0 for its internal storage, offering twice the data speeds of current UFS 3.1 technology.
Claim and Counterclaim
Those would certainly be interesting and attractive upgrades to the next-generation OnePlus flagship, although we’ve seen ceramics on the OnePlus X before – and several models from Oppo, the phone maker that has now merged with OnePlus.
As usual with these kinds of rumors, you should treat them with caution, even if the source is reliable (plans can change and inside information can be wrong, after all). Another tipster who often gets predictions right, tech journalist Max Jambor (opens in new tab)says the OnePlus 11 will not in fact appear with a ceramic body.
However, Jambor agrees with the UFS 4.0 rumor, so it seems OnePlus is eager to pack as much cutting-edge tech into its next high-end product as possible. The phone is expected to launch in the first few months of 2023.
Analysis: OnePlus in 2023
OnePlus hasn’t exactly been consistent in its phone launches over the past few years, with the global pandemic and the Oppo merger and everything else going on – and that means we’re not so sure about what’s going to happen in 2023.
Over the course of 2022, we’ve had the OnePlus 10 Pro, the OnePlus 10T, the OnePlus Nord 2T and the OnePlus Nord CE 2. As you can see from that list, the focus has been on mid-range phones, with only the OnePlus 10 Pro counting as a true flagship.
There’s never been a standard OnePlus 10, for reasons we’re not so clear on. Maybe OnePlus thought the Pro moniker carried more weight, or maybe it thought the phone’s launch calendar was already too busy this year.
In 2023, the situation could be reversed: next year we’ll get a OnePlus 11 but not a OnePlus 11 Pro, according to our friend Max Jambor, although the ‘standard’ phone will apparently have the ‘pro’ components in it.