A leaked photo, seemingly taken from an internal OnePlus meeting, has surfaced online apparently showing CEO Pete Lau with a device that could be either the OnePlus 7, or another unnamed 5G phone from the company.
The image was tweeted by leaker Ishan Agarwal - who has a reasonable track record with smartphone leaks in the past - and considering we can actually see the OnePlus CEO in the shot there's little doubt it's genuine.
A red device can been seen on screen, and it appears to sitting face down on the table in the room, while a white/grey variant of the handset seems to be in Lau's hands.
There's a distinctive circular camera block on the rear of both devices, which would be a new design direction for the firm.
EXCLUSIVE! Here's your first look at an upcoming OnePlus Device I don't know much about. This image shows the device in prototype/designing stage and it is not final but this is probably how the device may end up looking. That's Pete (CEO of OP) in the img and the device itself. pic.twitter.com/Yau9EsgSDyDecember 19, 2018
Not so fast...
While we can easily get carried away with this early reveal of the OnePlus 7, or the first OnePlus 5G smartphone, it's worth noting this could simply be an early prototype.
Handsets go through a myriad of designs, tests and tweaks during development, and what we see in this leaked image may never make it to market - so take it all with a pinch of salt for now.
Previous reports claim the price of OnePlus' 5G device could be between $200 and $300 higher than the firm's standard flagships, and it's expected to be powered by the latest Snapdragon 855 chip with the 5G-capable X50 modem.
2019 promises to be an exciting year for tech aficionados as the industry seems poised to forge ahead with new, more powerful and far-reaching technologies in field like AI, machine learning, and of course, the not-so-humble smartphone.
First on the list will be 5G phones, so we'll be keeping our eyes peeled for more news (leaks!).
