At the end of October, during the official launch of the new OnePlus 6T, the Chinese group also unveiled its plans to launch a OnePlus 5G smartphone across Europe. With its partner Qualcomm, OnePlus is not hiding its ambitions and hopes to be able to offer the first 5G-compatible phone in the coming year.
Qualcomm President Cristiano Amon said that they are “very pleased to announce that [their] collaboration with OnePlus will include a 5G smartphone in the near future.” OnePlus also shared some additional details about this highly anticipated OnePlus 5G smartphone.
Thus, OnePlus plans to introduce this first 5G smartphone at the beginning of the year 2019, which necessarily suggests an announcement during the Mobile World Congress which will develop in Barcelona at the end of February 2019.
The First OnePlus 5G Smartphone To Launch in 2019, And It Won’t Be The OnePlus 7
While it would seem right for the Chinese group to launch the OnePlus 7 as its first 5G smartphone, it looks like OnePlus wants to expand its mobile devices offer with a high-end 4G smartphone at an affordable price (the OnePlus 7) and a premium OnePlus 5G smartphone for those customers who want faster mobile data connections.
In this way, OnePlus would continue to offer a high-end 4G smartphone at an affordable price along with a premium OnePlus 5G smartphone. Now, the question is how and when the launch of this OnePlus 5G smartphone will proceed, given that the 5G network is currently unavailable in the world.
Last May, SFR and Nokia conducted a 5G network test in France. Now, obviously, we imagine that all GSM operators and smartphone manufacturers would join the 5G race with special offers and new 5G-compatible devices. Also, the Cupertino-based tech giant, Apple, announced that it plans to launch its first 5G iPhone somewhen in 2020.