The geekerati are expecting the OnePlus 7 to leave the notched screen behind and go for a full screen display. The latest leak backs up that excited anticipation.
Noted Twitter leaker Ice Universe has a shot of a case for the OnePlus 7 that echoes the hard-cases that OnePlus offers alongside its own handsets. With cutouts for the volume and power keys, as well as the alert slider, there are two other gaps to note.
OnePlus 7 pic.twitter.com/JQYI69s5ha
— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) March 18, 2019
The first is the tall central cutout for the main camera. It’s certainly talker than the OnePlus 6T cases, and there are two options here. The first is a return to a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor under the camera - which is possible but flues in the face of OnePlus’ push toward in-display fingerprint reading and facial recognition. The second (and more likely) is the addition of a third lens to the camera, increasing the prowess of the OnePlus flagship as a camera.
The second gap is just visible on the top edge of the case. It lines up with the location of the rumored pop-up forward facing camera.
If you are paying attention, then the details in this case will not be a surprise, but a confirmation. OnePlus shares an investor with a number of other smartphone manufacturers, notably Oppo. And it would be fair to say that a number of major components have been shared between Oppo and OnePlus handsets in the past (such as the in-display fingerprint reader of the OnePlus and the design of the notch in the OnePlus 6).
Take this month’s release of the Oppo F11 Pro. A full screen handset, a vertical camera module at the rear, and a pop-up selfie camera along the top edge. While the specifications inside the device may change (the F11 Pro ships with the Mediatek Helio P70, while the OnePlus 7 is confirmed as shipping with the SnapDragon 855), key features are likely to carry over between Oppo and OnePlus.
So that pop-up selfie camera? It was already a good bet to turn up on the OnePlus 7 at its launch in late Q2, but the new information from the case leak gives me a little bit more confidence in this prediction.
