OnePlus is gearing up for another round of launches following their usual release schedule. Every year, we usually see a T variant upgrade to the phone(s) that were launched earlier in the year. Last year, OnePlus had launched the OnePlus 7T and OnePlus 7T Pro as upgrades to the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro. While the vanilla variants had a fair few changes, the Pro variants upgrades were minor at best. So when rumors first emerged that there may not be a OnePlus 8T Pro this year, we weren't really surprised. Now, OnePlus has officially confirmed that there indeed will not be a OnePlus 8T Pro, but there might be more coming in from the Nord lineup.
OnePlus CEO Mr. Pete Lau shared this news on Weibo, roughly translated as below:
There is no 8T Pro this year. Users who like Pro-level products can continue to choose OnePlus 8 Pro, the annual machine king. Our plan for it is itself defined in a direction where there is no room for upgrade.
Essentially, the company concedes that there is not much room for a mid-year upgrade on this year's Pro. The OnePlus 8 Pro was widely hailed to be a very good flagship, emerging strong against some worthy competitors. By extension, this could also mean that the OnePlus 8 Pro might not enjoy the additional 6 months of software updates that a T release brings to the table -- though we would need to confirm the same from the company since the OnePlus 8T is definitely coming.
This news might indicate that we have just one phone release to look forward to, but OnePlus seems to have something else in the works too. The OnePlus Nord's Instagram page has teased that something is "coming soon".
We know that OnePlus has been working on a new Nord, called the Nord N10 5G aka Billie, with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 690 chipset, a 90Hz display, and a 64MP quad rear camera setup. The phone is expected to come to the USA for under $400, if current rumors are to be believed. OnePlus hasn't confirmed these specifications, but something is indeed coming soon.