The mid-range OnePlus Z may have been delayed until summer
If the official announcement of the 5G-enabled OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro earlier this week has felt like the culmination of an eternity of rumors and leaks, that might be because we've known about these high-end devices for an incredibly long time. We're not just talking about their names or existence, but rather the designs on the whole, which were first revealed more than six months ago.
What many of you may not remember is the same prolific leaker that outed the now-official high-end duo depicted another unreleased OnePlus phone way back in December. Initially expected to be called OnePlus 8 Lite, this very intriguing mid-ranger has yet to materialize, but according to Steve Hemmerstoffer, aka @OnLeaks, its launch was most likely postponed rather than cancelled altogether.
Steve H.'s inside sources, who are rarely wrong about these things, claim the handset was originally planned to be unveiled along with the OnePlus 8 series on April 14, but the company's schedule had to be revised due to the coronavirus "situation." That certainly sounds plausible, especially thinking back to CEO Pete Lau's remarks a few weeks ago, when the aforementioned April 14 date was announced.
Before "moving forward", OnePlus apparently pushed back that launch "three times out of concern for the current situation", which is probably also what happened to the OnePlus Z. That name, by the way, popped up in the rumor mill as a OnePlus 8 Lite replacement just last month, when it was still unclear whether or not we were going to see the mid-end device unveiled alongside its higher-end cousins.
Unfortunately, there are no words on exactly when to expect this OnePlus Z now, although the best case scenario seems to call for a vague and relatively distant "summer" announcement. If nothing changes compared to the latest speculation, the company's first mid-range smartphone since 2015's not-so-popular OnePlus X is likely to come with a flat 6.4-inch AMOLED display, a MediaTek Dimensity 1000 chipset supporting 5G speeds, three rear-facing cameras including a 48MP primary shooter, 8 gigs of RAM, at least 128 gigs of internal storage space, and a sizable 4,000mAh battery.
That's... not your everyday mid-end Android handset, and if the rumored $400 starting price also sticks, OnePlus could give Apple and Google a serious run for their money in the budget sector.
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