The OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro have been the topic of leaks for the past few weeks. Now, during an online launch event, OnePlus has officially announced the devices, putting an end to all speculation. Coming in with the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoC, 5G across the board, high-refresh-rate displays support, OnePlus' first-ever fast wireless charging solution, and new colors and finishes, the OnePlus 8 and the OnePlus 8 Pro have a lot to offer. Follow along as we take a deep dive into the OnePlus 8 series to see if they live up to their "Lead with Speed" motto.

OnePlus 8 Forums ||| OnePlus 8 Pro Forums

OnePlus 8 Series Specifications

---

Design

The OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro are very similar in design except for the inclusion of a few new sensors on the rear of the 8 Pro. If you're familiar with last year's OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7T series, however, there are a couple of important design changes.

First of all, OnePlus has ditched the pop-up camera that lent the OnePlus 7 Pro and OnePlus 7T Pro their notch-less appearances. Similarly, there's no longer a waterdrop notch like on the OnePlus 7 or OnePlus 7T. Instead, OnePlus is following a display trend that's intensified this year: Hole-punch display cutouts. Both the OnePlus 8 and the OnePlus 8 Pro feature a single tiny (3.8mm) hole-punch display cutout in the top left-hand corner of the display. Within this cutout lies the single front-facing camera. If you're wondering why OnePlus went with a hole-punch cutout instead of a pop-up camera this year, we're told that OnePlus wanted to save some internal space so they could fit more components. On the surface, this seems to be true as the OnePlus 8 series feature larger batteries than last year's models, pack a discrete modem (the Snapdragon X55), and in the case of the OnePlus 8 Pro, a dedicated visual processor (the Iris 5 from Pixelworks) and wireless charging coils. In spite of all this, the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro still manage to be thinner and lighter than the OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro respectively.

The next major design difference between the OnePlus 8 series and last year's OnePlus 7/7T is the curvature of the display. While the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7T featured flat displays, the OnePlus 7 Pro and OnePlus 7T Pro had dramatically curved displays. The displays of the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro are basically in the middle of the OnePlus 7/7T and OnePlus 7 Pro/7T Pro in terms of curvature. The OnePlus 8 series displays start curving much closer to the edges and are also steeper and seem to produce much less glare than the displays of the OnePlus 7 Pro/7T Pro. In other words, less area is curved but the curve is more dramatic towards the edge.

Where the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro mainly differ is on the rear. Both devices have a vertically aligned camera bump, but the OnePlus 8 Pro moves the dual-LED flash from below the camera bump to the left of it and also adds an extra set of sensors. Those sensors include a color filter camera, a laser sensor, and a flicker ambient light sensor. Another, more minor difference between the two devices can be seen on the bottom: The OnePlus 8 Pro has a slight indentation on the bottom, likely to assist in holding the phone since the 8 Pro has a slightly larger display (6.55" versus 6.78").

OnePlus 8

OnePlus 8 Pro

To round things up, here are all the other design aspects that the two phones have in common: Both phones have a volume rocker on the left, both phones have an Alert Slider and power button on the right, both phones have a USB Type-C port on the bottom, both phones have dual speakers (one on the bottom-right and another in the top bezel), both phones have a dual nanoSIM card tray on the bottom-left, and both phones feature the new OnePlus logo on the rear. Both phones also have similar Colors, Materials, and Finish (CMF); depending on the color you get, the back glass cover will either have a matte-frosted or glossy finish.

One major aspect of the design that you can't see is the water and dust-proofing. The OnePlus 8 Pro has an IP68 certification rating for dust and water resistance while the OnePlus 8 has only been lab-tested by OnePlus themselves for dust and water resistance. Keep in mind an IP rating is not a guarantee that your phone will survive falling in water— check your warranty to see if it's covered.

---

Display

OnePlus' motto for the OnePlus 8 series is "Lead with Speed." This year, the company is putting a large emphasis on the display, especially regarding the smoothness of the display experience. While the OnePlus 8 features only minimal display spec improvements over the OnePlus 7T, most of which are due to software rather than hardware, the OnePlus 8 Pro features a dramatically improved display experience over the OnePlus 7 Pro and 7T Pro. The OnePlus 8 Pro features OnePlus' first 120Hz refresh rate display, which, unlike the Samsung Galaxy S20, can be used at the display's native 3168 x 1440 resolution. The OnePlus 8 Pro also features an incredibly bright display, with a claimed peak brightness of 1300nits— more than double the Google Pixel 4. Furthermore, OnePlus has improved the adaptive brightness experience by introducing a total of 4096 levels of brightness adjustments on the OnePlus 8 Pro.

In collaboration with visual processing company Pixelworks, OnePlus has also introduced a number of new display features on the OnePlus 8 series:

1. Both devices were calibrated by Pixelworks' calibration software and run "Pixelworks color management software on the display processing unit of the Snapdragon 865 to optimize power" while delivering "industry-record" color accuracy for content in the sRGB and DCI-P3 color gamuts.
2. Similarly, both phones feature "True Flesh Tones" to "[ensure] accuracy across all display modes to convey true-to-life skin tones for all content involving real people, whether photos, video captured on the phone, or popular movies."
3. Next, both devices feature "Brightness Smoothing" for "finely-tuned, automatic luminance control" that "enables ultra-smooth display brightness transitions and mitigates screen flashing as ambient lighting changes, particularly in dimly lit viewing environments."
4. Finally, both phones come equipped with "DC Dimming 2.0," which is designed to reduce eye strain that can occur from sometimes-perceivable flickering at low brightnesses on AMOLED displays. DC dimming typically involves supplying the display with continuous current, which can lower visual quality, but Pixelworks says that DC Dimming 2.0 on the OnePlus 8 series dynamically adjusts the display's current to reduce flickering without sacrificing quality.

While the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro share the aforementioned display features, the OnePlus 8 Pro also has a couple of additional display features from Pixelworks:

1. First, the 8 Pro supports "HDR Boost," which is OnePlus' term for always-on SDR-to-HDR up-mapping. What this means is that all SDR content—whether it be videos or games—are upconverted from SDR to HDR. Colors in games and videos will be noticeably more vibrant when converted from SDR to HDR even though they weren't originally created in HDR format. In addition, contrast and sharpness will also be enhanced with local contrast enhancement and sharpness filtering (2D Peaking) also happening during SDR-to-HDR upconversion.
2. Next is Comfort Tone, a feature that utilizes the RGB sensors on the phone to automatically adjust the color temperature of the display to match the temperature of the ambient lighting. This reduces eye strain from blue light and gives the display a more paper-like look in more lighting conditions. This feature is similar to Apple's TrueTone or Google's Ambient EQ.
3. Then there's the "MotionEngine" technology that powers MEMC on the OnePlus 8 Pro. MEMC stands for Motion Estimation/Motion Compensation, and it's a technique to interpolate frames to boost the frame rate of video content. OnePlus says that MEMC can boost the frame rates of local or cloud-hosted videos played in apps like MX Player, VLC, OnePlus Gallery, YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video,  and Hotstar, and they plan to enable support for more video applications in the future. Videos can be boosted from 24 or 30fps to 60 or 120fps while "preserving the intended motion appearance for movies, live TV, sports, shared video, and other dynamic multimedia content."
4. Lastly, the OnePlus 8 Pro is the first smartphone with dual MIPI processing, which can increase the range of use cases for MEMC by adding robustness to GUI and text on screen.

Here's a table that summarizes the display features on the OnePlus 8 versus the OnePlus 8 Pro:

*Note: The OnePlus 8 has a "Vibrant Color Effect" setting which enables the "Vivid" screen profile when watching videos but does not upconvert SDR content to HDR format.

Here's a graphic provided by Pixelworks that illustrates the difference between the Iris 5 visual processor and the Soft Iris on Snapdragon implementation:

With the addition of these new display technologies, OnePlus has taken a number of measures to ensure they don't annoy users:

• When the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro are idling, in the camera app, or in the dialer app, the screen operates at 60Hz. This is to reduce power consumption.
• MEMC is off by default on the OnePlus 8 Pro to satisfy those users who may want to watch videos in their original format.
• MEMC only applies to videos playing in fullscreen mode. It will not happen when you're watching videos while scrolling through a social media feed, for instance.

---

Performance

As always, the new OnePlus 8 series smartphones will pack the best mobile processor from Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 865. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 has a tri-cluster CPU core configuration with 1x Kryo 585 (ARM Cortex-A77-based) "Prime" core operating at a maximum frequency of 2.84GHz, 3x Kryo 585 (ARM Cortex A77-based) "Performance" cores operating at maximum frequencies of 2.4GHz, and 4x Kryo 385 (ARM Cortex-A55-based) "Efficiency" cores operating at a maximum frequency of 1.8GHz. Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 865 offers 25% faster CPU performance over the Snapdragon 855, which was found in the previous-generation OnePlus 7 series. The GPU in the OnePlus 8 series is the new Adreno 650 which offers 20% faster graphics rendering and 35% greater power efficiency than the Adreno 640 GPU of the OnePlus 7 series. Overall, the OnePlus 8 series should offer stellar real-world, gaming, and theoretical (benchmarking) performance.

OnePlus is also offering 8GB or 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM on the OnePlus 8 Pro, though the OnePlus 8 comes with either 8GB or 12GB of LPDDR4X RAM. Both devices feature 128GB or 256GB of Dual-Lane UFS 3.0+ storage, however. The touch sampling rate on the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro are 180Hz and 240Hz respectively. Both phones have OnePlus' RAM Boost feature that is designed to speed up launches of your most used applications.

---

Cameras

As one might hope, the camera is one of the main areas of improvement in the new OnePlus phones. With the gradual price creep over the years, OnePlus has now firmly stepped into the premium flagship category, so the two phones absolutely need to pack a punch here. At least on paper, there is some weight behind this.

We will start talking about the cameras with the front camera, which is nearly the same on both phones. Since there is no pop-up or notch cutout this year, the front camera sits in a hole-punch cutout on the top-left corner of the display. The sensor is the 16MP Sony IMX471 for both devices, the same as the one on the OnePlus 7 and 7T series. The lens is either an f/2.0 or f/2.45 aperture lens, 1.0µm pixel size, fixed focus, and EIS support for stabilization. You can record from the front camera at 1080p@30fps.

The rear camera setup on the phones is very different.

OnePlus 8

The OnePlus 8 has a triple rear camera setup. The primary sensor is the 48MP Sony IMX586 with an f/1.75 aperture lens and 0.8µm pixels pre-binning. There is an OIS module as well as support for EIS on board, so your low-light and handheld shots will be steady. The second camera is a 16MP ultra-wide-angle sensor, with a 116° Field of View and an f/2.2 aperture lens. The ultra-wide camera also supports Nightscape, so you can take low-light landscapes too. The third camera is the dedicated 2MP macro camera, with an f/2.4 aperture and 1.75µm pixels. There is a Dual LED flash onboard, as well as PDAF and CAF support for quick auto-focusing. The OnePlus 8 (and the 8 Pro) also feature "Smart Pet Detection" that increases the shutter speed—great for tracking and focusing on these fast-moving subjects for perfect pet pictures.

For video, you can record at up to 4K@60fps, with slow-motion supporting up to 720p@480fps or 1080p@240fps. You can also video record at 4K@30fps through the wide-angle sensor with Ultra Steady mode.

OnePlus 8 Pro

The OnePlus 8 Pro switches it up with a quad rear camera setup, with not one but two 48MP cameras but both performing very different roles. The primary camera on the device is the 48MP Sony IMX689 with an f/1.7 aperture lens and large 1.12µm pixels pre-binning and 2.24µm pixels post-binning. Of course, there is support for EIS and OIS as well.

The second camera is the 48MP ultra-wide-angle camera with 120° Field of View and an f/2.2 aperture. This is actually the primary sensor that was present on the OnePlus 7 Pro and OnePlus 7T Pro, just coupled with an ultra-wide-angle lens. This camera also supports macro mode with focusing as close as 3cm. You can also take Nightscape shots with the ultra-wide-angle camera.

The third camera, existing on the side array, is the 8MP telephoto camera with support for 3x hybrid optical zoom, 30X digital zoom, and OIS. This is actually a 12MP sensor that is being cropped down to 8MP for further lossless zoom capabilities.

Lastly, the fourth camera is a 5MP color filter with an f/2.4 aperture. This camera is mainly utilized for adding filters and creating artistic photos with varied lighting effects, such as the new "photochrome" mode. Other extras in the camera setup include the Dual LED Flash; all pixel omni-directional PDAF, along with CAF and LAF for very quick auto-focusing; and a flicker sensor which helps reduce the screen flickering when video recording displays.

Video recording features include 4K@60fps and slow-motion up to 720p@480fps or 1080p@240fps. You can also video record at 4K@30fps through the wide-angle sensor with the Ultra Steady mode. There's also 3D audio and Audio Zoom support, thanks to the inclusion of a third microphone hole. You can also shoot HDR videos, which OnePlus is calling "single frame 3-HDR," which can be useful when filming scenes with high contrast lighting.

---

Battery & Charging

Warp Charge 30T

Like the OnePlus 7T series, the OnePlus 8 series supports fast wired charging using OnePlus' Warp Charge 30T technology. Charging peaks at 30W (5V/6A) using OnePlus' proprietary Warp Charge cable and Warp Charge 30T charging adapter. OnePlus' fast wired charging solutions migrate the power management and heat dispersion systems to the power adapter, allowing for the phone to be charged quickly but without a lot of heat being generated near the battery. This comes at the cost of the power adapter having to be quite large and necessitating the use of a first-party cable and adapter, though. Fortunately, the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro support 15W USB-PD charging as well.

Warp Charge 30 Wireless

The OnePlus 8 Pro is the first smartphone from OnePlus to feature wireless charging. OnePlus previously stated they waited to implement wireless charging until it was fast enough for their liking, and apparently, that meant they wanted wireless charging that is comparable to their fastest wired charging solution. The new Warp Charge 30 Wireless charging technology supports a peak output of 30W, comparable to the peak 30W output of Warp Charge 30T. Normally, inductive charging generates far more heat than wired charging, so it's generally not as efficient. However, OnePlus says their solution has a charge efficiency of 97% thanks to two things: The inclusion of a fan in the wireless charger and the inclusion of "isolated charge pumps" in the phone to modulate the voltage and current.

The fan in the wireless charger can get as loud as 30db, but there will be a "night mode" option on the OnePlus 8 Pro that reduces the charging speed and turns the fan off.

While Warp Charge 30 Wireless doesn't have the crown for the fastest wireless charging solution on the market—both the OPPO Ace2 and Huawei P40 Pro+ beat it at 40W—it is significantly faster than the wireless charging solutions from Apple, Google, or Samsung. Furthermore, both the OnePlus 8 Pro and the Warp Charge 30 Wireless charging stand can fall back to 5W or 10W Qi wireless charging, giving you the freedom to charge your OnePlus 8 Pro with other Qi wireless chargers or to charge your other devices using the Warp Charge 30 Wireless stand.

As an added bonus, the OnePlus 8 Pro supports reverse wireless charging with a maximum output of 3W. This can come in handy when you don't have another wireless charger present but you need to top up another phone or accessory.

Battery

The OnePlus 8 has a 4300mAh battery while the OnePlus 8 Pro has a 4510mAh battery. That's an increase over the OnePlus 7 and 7T series, but it's necessary to cope with 5G connectivity (on both models) and a 120Hz refresh rate display (on the 8 Pro).

---

Software - What's new in OxygenOS 10

Both the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro launch with OxygenOS 10 on top of Android 10. OnePlus has not made many changes to OxygenOS with the OnePlus 8 series, instead opting to slowly roll out new features to OxygenOS Open Betas for its existing smartphones. That being said, there are two new features that OnePlus is highlighting:

• Dark Theme 2.0: Now you can selectively apply a forced dark mode to third-party applications that don't have one.
• Dynamic Wallpapers: The new dynamic wallpapers can subtly shift color tones based on the outdoor temperature condition.

The OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro also support Google's Live Caption feature and Google Assistant's Ambient Mode but do not ship with an Always on Display, OnePlus' new Instant Translation feature, or the updated OnePlus Launcher with a revamped recent apps interface. These 3 features will likely arrive in future OxygenOS and/or app updates.

Lastly, OnePlus is still sticking to its Software Maintenence Schedule. The OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro will receive 2 years of software updates, with updates to Android 11 and Android 12 planned. Both devices will also receive 3 years of bi-monthly security updates, though the company will likely open up an OxygenOS Open Beta program for users who wish to try out new updates before they're pushed to stable. While OnePlus hasn't officially confirmed it yet, it's likely the company will have an Android 11 beta ready for when Google announces it. Finally, both devices have A/B dual partitions for Seamless Update support.

On stage, OnePlus confirmed that the OnePlus 8 series will support Google Stadia, which will also be coming to other OnePlus phones in the future. OnePlus also mentioned that the phones will support Amazon Alexa as a voice assistant.

---

Connectivity

The entire OnePlus 8 series is 5G-ready. With the exception of the Verizon OnePlus 8 model, you won't need to buy a special 5G version of either phone to connect to the 5G networks of most carriers. That's because both devices feature Qualcomm's Snapdragon X55 multimode 2G/3G/4G/5G modem. 5G band support differs by region, though, so be sure to check the specification table above to see if the device will support your network's growing 5G network. In general, the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro should be able to connect to the sub-6GHz (low and mid-band) 5G networks of most carriers, but only the Verizon OnePlus 8 will support connecting to the carrier's mmWave "Ultra Wideband" network. The Indian models support 5G on band n78 even though India does not have a 5G network, but this is explained by the fact that there was no way for OnePlus to avoid 5G support since the Snapdragon 865 can only be paired with the Snapdragon X55 modem.

Also featured in both devices is Qualcomm's FastConnect 6800 mobile connectivity subsystem. This enables Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) support as well as Bluetooth 5.1. You'll need to have a Wi-Fi 6 router to take advantage of the faster speeds. As for Bluetooth 5.1, there aren't that many notable improvements. The OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro support Qualcomm's aptX and aptX HD, Sony's LDAC, and AAC codecs for high-quality Bluetooth audio. Lastly, both devices support dual-frequency GNSS for improved location accuracy, and they should also support India's NavIC system.

---

Miscellaneous Tidbits

Here are a few odds and ends that we feel aren't worth putting into their own sections:

• Both devices share the same dual stereo speakers (with Dolby Atmos tuning) and X-axis linear vibration motors.
• Both devices feature optical under-display fingerprint scanners manufactured by Goodix.
• OnePlus partnered with Nokia to bring the latter's OZO Audio features to the OnePlus 8 Pro, including Audio Zoom, Audio 3D, and Audio Windscreen.
• Both devices support video output via the Type-C port, but there is no desktop mode interface.

---

OnePlus 8 Series Pricing & Availability

OnePlus 8 in Onyx Black (left), Glacial Green (center) and Interstellar Glow (right).

OnePlus 8 Pro in Onyx Black (left), Glacial Green (center), and Ultramarine Blue (right).

Here are the prices of each variant of the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro. At this time, we only have all the pricing details for the U.S., but we will update this chart once we have the prices for other markets.

*Exclusive to Verizon Wireless in the U.S.

The OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro will be available unlocked through Amazon and OnePlus.com starting April 29th. Both Verizon and T-Mobile will only carry the OnePlus 8 and not the OnePlus 8 Pro. Both carrier models will go on sale starting April 29th. Here's what you need to know about the T-Mobile and Verizon carrier models:

• T-Mobile
• Can be bootloader unlocked after the device is paid off
• Supports a single nanoSIM card
• Supports T-Mobile's 600MHz 5G network and will later support its 2.5GHz 5G network acquired through the Sprint merger
• T-Mobile will be the only carrier to carry the Interstellar Glow color, according to its website.
• Verizon
• Cannot be bootloader unlocked
• Supports a single nanoSIM card
• Only comes in an 8GB RAM/128GB storage variant
• Exclusive Polar Silver color will be available alongside Onyx Black
• Supports Verizon's 5G Ultra Wideband (mmWave) network, and later this year, will support Verizon's Low Band (sub-6GHz) network

OnePlus 8 in Onyx Black (left) and Polar Silver (right) for Verizon. The Verizon units will have mmWave antennas to support Verizon's 5G Ultra Wideband network but there are no other internal changes.

Here are the markets where the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro will go on sale:

OnePlus 8 Series Regional Availability

• North America
• United States
• Canada
• Europe
• Austria
• Belgium
• Bulgaria
• Croatia
• Cyprus
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Hungary
• Ireland
• Italy
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• Netherlands
• Poland
• Portugal
• Romania
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden
• United Kingdom
• Asia
• Mainland China
• Hong Kong
• India

read more

OnePlus 8 Product Page ||| OnePlus 8 Pro Product Page

As a bonus, if you purchase a new OnePlus 8 series device, you will get 3 months of 100GB of Google One storage.

If you wish to buy the phone through Verizon, you can also get up to $700 off by switching from another carrier to Verizon Unlimited and trading in your old phone. By taking advantage of this offer, you will get a free Stream TV (Verizon's Android TV box), an Amazon Echo Dot, and a smart plug. Current Verizon customers on Unlimited plans can get up to $550 off with a trade-in. You can also finance the phone for $33.33 per month for 24 months on Verizon Device Payment for 0% APR. For more details on Verizon's offers, visit Verizon's online media center.

---

OnePlus 8 Series Accessories

Alongside the new OnePlus 8 series, OnePlus will also sell a plethora of accessories. There's the aforementioned Warp Charge 30 Wireless Charger which retails for $69.95, but there is also a new Bluetooth neckband-style wireless earbud called the Bullets Wireless Z. Then, there are the first-party and limited edition cases that come in a variety of colors and finishes. There will only be 10,000 André Limited Edition Cases sold, and they will have NFC chips built-in for users to scan to apply a special wallpaper.

OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro cases (left to right): Sandstone Bumper in Cyan, Smokey Purple, and Black; Transparent Bumper Case; Nylon Bumper Case; Karbon Bumper Case; André Limited Edition Case. 

We don't know how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect OnePlus 8 sales, but it's likely the two smartphones will be popular among smartphone enthusiasts despite the price increases. In addition, OnePlus' history of supporting custom development often leads to strong community support. If you're interested in either the OnePlus 8 or the OnePlus 8 Pro, then we recommend you join the XDA forums for either device by clicking one of the two links below.

OnePlus 8 XDA Forums ||| OnePlus 8 Pro XDA Forums

We will be updating this article with further pricing details as we get them.