After months of speculation (some would say even longer), a new affordable line of smartphones has been confirmed by OnePlus, although we don’t know when exactly a launch will happen. But the company—as usual—is leveraging off their brand’s loyal following to build hype for their upcoming launch, setting up a private account on Instagram for fans to follow, and to view cryptic teasers.
The company is also producing a four-part documentary on the development of the upcoming mid-range smartphone, which will premiere on the 30th of June 2020 on YouTube. The documentary will follow the journey of Carl Pei, Pete Lau, and other members of the OnePlus team as they develop the new phone ahead of a July release (that was revealed via morse code on Instagram).
The Chinese tech company has now released an early trailer to whet the appetite, saying that the documentary will cover “what it takes to launch a smartphone”:
The trailer touches on how the OnePlus brand was started, with ideation based on a simple idea: “to share better technology with the world”. What’s also interesting is that the development cycle for the upcoming OnePlus phone, according to the trailer, is a mere 6 months.
The rest of the video touches on the importance of building a team, the “speed” of the smartphone, as well as some clips of the product team’s tense meetings. And as someone who enjoys the odd documentary, I have to say that the trailer certainly serves its purpose: to hype up the upcoming documentary, which will consequently hype up the phone’s launch.
As for the OnePlus Z (or OnePlus Nord, or OnePlus 8 Lite), we’re expecting to see a 6.55″ Super AMOLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate, along with a Snapdragon 765 with 5G support. A possible price of around RM1,411 has also been discussed, and CEO Pete Lau has already confirmed that initial availability will be in European and Indian markets, although this could be extended to global markets later.
If you’re looking forward to the OnePlus New Beginnings documentary, keep OnePlus’ YouTube channel bookmarked—along with SoyaCincau.com for the latest updates.
