Editors' Note, May 14, 2019: CNET's OnePlus 7 Pro review is here. Read more about the new phone from OnePlus.
OnePlus is reportedly planning to introduce a new premium phone in 2019 that supports 5G and features new display technology. Called the OnePlus 7 Pro, the phone will have a display that's "super smooth and very crisp," OnePlus CEO Pete Lau told The Verge. The report speculates that the display may support a 90Hz refresh rate that's about 33 percent faster than most other smartphones.
The faster refresh rate may have been foreshadowed by Lau in a tweet from last week:
Excited to share the next product from OnePlus will unleash a new era of Fast and Smooth. Especially Smooth! Smooth is more challenging than Fast - a true test of hardware and software.
— Pete Lau (@petelau2007) April 17, 2019
The new product is just beautiful - I can't wait for you to see it! 😬✨ pic.twitter.com/yPU9sEbeIv
The company's next flagship is expected this spring, possibly as early as May 14. The Verge suggests that although the OnePlus 7 Pro will support 5G, the company is downplaying it, given the near-term limits of the next generation network.
Previously, OnePlus had said that it would be among the first to have 5G in a phone -- but that the device would not come to the US. The company did not immediately respond to a request to comment.
Read more: Everything we know so far about the OnePlus 7
Shenzhen-based OnePlus originally captured a following by making phones with many of the premium features found on Apple and Samsung's premium phones and selling them for hundreds less. Since then, it's tweaked that strategy: OnePlus now has one of the highest increases in cost from model to model.
Retail site Giztop has already published rumored specs for the forthcoming OnePlus 7 that include a 6.5-inch AMOLED screen, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor, rear triple cameras, a 16-megapixel pop-up selfie camera, a 4,000-mAh battery and Oxygen OS 9 base running on Android 9.0 Pie.
Starting at $569 (about £440 or AU$800), the phone will also come with 128GB of storage that can be expanded to 256GB by adding a microSD card, according to the listing.