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OnePlus Shows Details of 'Concept One' Phone

The concept phone OnePlus is bringing to CES appears to have 'color shifting glass,' which hides the cameras when they aren't in use.

Sascha Segan
 & Sascha Segan Former Lead Analyst, Mobile

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OnePlus tweeted new details of its "Concept One" phone, the non-retail device it's showing off at next week's CES trade show.

CES 2020 Bug ArtThe 10-second video shows a typical OnePlus mute slider and three cameras in a vertical array on the back. "Color-shifting glass technology" looks opaque when the cameras aren't in use, and then clears to reveal the cameras. I didn't see a notch for a front-facing camera in the video, but the screen appears to be curved.

The video ends with the tagline "Alternate device, alternate future," which implies that we won't see all of these features on the upcoming OnePlus 8 Pro, which we expect will come out in April or May.

We can make some guesses about the technologies OnePlus will show off here. OnePlus, like Oppo and Vivo, is a subsidiary of tech giant BBK, and the BBK companies tend to share a technology pipeline. Back in June, Oppo showed an under-display selfie camera, and by December, it appeared to be able to fit it into a near-retail product.

Oppo also recently announced its flagship Find X2, whose camera "will use improved pixel detection methods for better auto-focusing, better focusing on smaller objects, and better light sensitivity under low-light conditions," according to our report from Oppo's innovation event in December.

I'd be more curious to see if the Concept One makes good on some of the 5G visions OnePlus founder Pete Lau has described at past trade shows, including using low-latency 5G networks to blur the line between cloud and local storage—in other words, making your phone's storage feel like it's endless.

OnePlus currently has four phones on sale here in the US. There's the OnePlus 7T Pro 5G McLaren with T-Mobile; the OnePlus 7 Pro 5G with Sprint; the OnePlus 7T with T-Mobile; and the OnePlus 7 Pro, sold through OnePlus's own website. According to research firm Wave7, the manufacturer had about a 2.3 percent market share at T-Mobile in December.

We'll see the new OnePlus concept phone at CES next week.

About Our Expert

Sascha Segan

Sascha Segan

Former Lead Analyst, Mobile

My Experience

I'm that 5G guy. I've actually been here for every "G." I reviewed well over a thousand products during 18 years working full-time at PCMag.com, including every generation of the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S. I also wrote a weekly newsletter, Fully Mobilized, where I obsessed about phones and networks.

My Areas of Expertise

  • US and Canadian mobile networks
  • Mobile phones released in the US
  • iPads, Android tablets, and ebook readers
  • Mobile hotspots
  • Big data features such as Fastest Mobile Networks and Best Work-From-Home Cities

The Technology I Use

Being cross-platform is critical for someone in my position. In the US, the mobile world is split pretty cleanly between iOS and Android. So I think it's really important to have Apple, Android and Windows devices all in my daily orbit.

I use a Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 for work and a 2021 Apple MacBook Pro for personal use. My current phone is a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, although I'm probably going to move to an Android foldable. Most of my writing is either in Microsoft OneNote or a free notepad app called Notepad++. Number crunching, which I do often for those big data stories, is via Microsoft Excel, DataGrip for MySQL, and Tableau.

In terms of apps and cloud services, I use both Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive heavily, although I also have iCloud because of the three Macs and three iPads in our house. I subscribe to way too many streaming services. 

My primary tablet is a 12.9-inch, 2020-model Apple iPad Pro. When I want to read a book, I've got a 2018-model flat-front Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. My home smart speakers run Google Home, and I watch a TCL Roku TV. And Verizon Fios keeps me connected at home.

My first computer was an Atari 800 and my first cell phone was a Qualcomm Thin Phone. I still have very fond feelings about both of them.

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