OnePlus 10 Pro first look — this could be the weird new design

Update: The OnePlus 10 Pro is set to be the next flagship OnePlus phone, and could arrive early next year.

Renders supposedly depicting the upcoming OnePlus 10 Pro just popped up, giving us a glimpse at what OnePlus' next flagship could look like. As you can see above, there's a triple camera and flash unit in a stovetop-like configuration. 

Leaker OnLeaks collaborated with Zouton for these renders, showing us the back of the phone from head on and at an angle. The design looks eerily like the Galaxy S21 with the contour design for the camera hump. The stove design looks decidedly odd.

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The OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro launched in March, so we expect the OnePlus 10 series to come out in a similar timeframe in 2022. That gives OnePlus a few months to finalize the design before production begins, and OnLeaks flat out says that the renders are based on photos of a prototype model. He then shared a photo of other prototypes OnePlus has worked on in the past, some of which look drastically different than the final versions.

If the renders are legit, then it looks like OnePlus is playing with dropping the fourth camera lens that the OnePlus 9 Pro. That phone's 2MP monochrome sensor served absolutely no purpose, so we're not sorry to see it go. Instead, we'd rather see more resources put into improving the existing camera hardware.

OnLeaks did not share any possible specs, but we're willing to bet that the OnePlus 10 Pro (if OnePlus ends up calling it that) will use the Snapdragon 898 system-on-chip and at least 12GB of RAM. Assuming supply shortages don't improve between now and then, we wouldn't expect to see multiple configurations since the $969 128GB/8GB OnePlus 9 Pro never materialized in the US before being officially canceled. When will this chip shortage ever end?

OnePlus still has its partnership with Hasselblad, so expect further upgrades to the OnePlus 10 Pro's cameras (and some extra Hasselblad branding on the final product). The OnePlus 9 Pro was the best camera phone that OnePlus has ever put out, though that wasn't a high bar to clear. Still, the 9 Pro did pretty well in our camera testing, despite falling shy of the Galaxy S21 Ultra, iPhone 13 series and Pixel 6 Pro.

It looks like we'll hit the ground running in 2022. Rumors say that Samsung will announce the Galaxy S21 FE at CES in January and the Galaxy S22 at the beginning of February. If OnePlus keeps the same timeline next year, then we'll have the OnePlus 10 the month after in March.

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