This upcoming flagship could react to taps and tilts faster than ever

It’s that time of the year again. The OnePlus 15 made its official debut in China in October last year, before being rolled out globally in November. Now, with its successor likely not too far behind, leaks surrounding the OnePlus 16 are starting to pick up pace — and the latest one suggests that the upcoming flagship could be a gaming beast.

We already know that the OnePlus 16 could have the thinnest bezels of any OnePlus phone, alongside a 9,000mAh battery and a true 165Hz display. That’s what makes the latest leak a lot more enticing and disappointing at the same time. The OnePlus 16 isn’t coming to the US, and if the latest leak is accurate, American buyers could be missing out on a gaming-focused flagship.

Digital Chat Station, a credible voice in the Chinese smartphone leak scene, claims on Weibo that the upcoming device will use a new in-house “Lingxi touch chip,” which achieves a multi-finger touch sampling rate of 520Hz (via ITHome).

Sampling rate, for reference, is the number of times a specific action is recorded in a single second. So, for something like touch, a 520Hz sampling rate means that the OnePlus 16’s display would be able to check for touch input 520 times per second — including when multiple fingers/touch points on the screen are involved. This should make input feel a lot more responsive, and not just with games, but with regular use too.

The company’s gaming ambition isn’t stopping at the screen. The leaker added that the phone will also boast a gyroscope sampling rate of 800Hz.

A gyroscope, for reference, measures the movement of your phone in real life; it detects when you tilt, sway, or rotate your device. That information can then be used by apps to track changes in your device’s orientation. Games, in particular, can leverage physical movement into in-game action.

In this case, an 800Hz sampling rate would mean that the OnePlus 16 would check for movement up to 800 times per second. In racing games, this should equal more responsive turns. In shooting games, it should allow for more precise aim adjustments.

Elsewhere, OnePlus isn’t simply targeting big-figure specs. The leaker added that the handset is being jointly tuned with first-person shooting mobile game studios and professional esports players.

Of course, none of these details are official yet, and they should be taken with a grain of salt. In any case, OnePlus isn’t going to sell the flagship in North America anyway, so we’ll be more interested to see which other brands might end up following OnePlus in its footsteps.