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OnePlus 5G phone will land before May 2019, look familiar

OnePlus CEO Pete Lau dished out some new information about the upcoming OnePlus 5G phone, expected in the first half of 2019.
By
December 11, 2018
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TL;DR
  • OnePlus CEO Pete Lau recently discussed the company’s plans for the OnePlus 5G phone.
  • The OnePlus 5G phone will land “before the end of May” and won’t likely be priced for profit.
  • The device will probably look a lot like the current OnePlus lineup, i.e. the OnePlus 6T.

OnePlus CEO Pete Lau recently sat down with CNET for an interview. Although the big news of this week related to OnePlus is its new OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition, most of what CNET asked revolved around the yet-to-be-revealed OnePlus 5G phone.

According to Lau, the OnePlus 5G phone will launch “before the end of May” next year. Although we already knew the device would be more expensive than the OnePlus smartphones currently on offer (priced around $750 or more, most likely), Lau says that the device itself will be priced without profit in mind. In other words, OnePlus wants its 5G phone to be as cheap as it possibly can be for consumers, without the company actually losing money.

“The 5G product is not expected to equate to huge sales,” he said through an interpreter. “It’s still early stage. But by 2020 it could already be very different.”

OnePlus' 5G smartphone will not be the OnePlus 7
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Part of the reason for the conservative outlook on the OnePlus 5G phone is how much it will cost to make. According to Lau, the 5G components inside will be much more expensive than the 4G components in current smartphones. However, being one of the first to market with a 5G device is what’s most important.

And that goal is not just for bragging rights. “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 said.

OnePlus already revealed the OnePlus 5G phone will hit Europe first in partnership with wireless carrier EE and will have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset under the hood.

Finally, Lau revealed that the OnePlus 5G phone will look a lot like the 4G phone lineup we’ve already seen. While the 5G phone won’t be the OnePlus 7, it is very likely the 5G device and the 7 will look similar on the outside but have different innards and price points.

What do you think? Does this news make you more or less excited for the OnePlus 5G phone? Let us know in the comments!

NEXT: OnePlus CEO interview: ‘We would definitely make’ a smaller phone, but not yet