OnePlus 5 with Ceramic Body to Launch in 2017, OnePlus 4 Might be Skipped

The rumors mills are already in action regarding the next year’s flagship smartphones. The Samsung Galaxy S8, LG G6, and Xiaomi Mi 6 are expected to launch at the upcoming MWC 2017. Now, we have got some interesting information related to the upcoming OnePlus smartphone. After launching the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T smartphones this year, next year we will be expecting the OnePlus 4 launch in the first half of 2017. But the twist here is that the number 4 is generally considered as unlucky in China which is why we might see the brand skipping the OnePlus 4 model and launch the OnePlus 5 in 2017. To give you a brief idea we had recently seen Vivo which is also a part of BBK, had launched the Vivo V5 as the successor to Vivo V3 & skipped the V4 model that should have actually been launched. There are several smaller Chinese electronics brands that have also been skipping the number 4 in their product version naming & these are just the hints.

According to Wikipedia, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and a few other Asian countries go through a practice called as Tetraphobia who avoid the number 4 because it is considered unlucky while they take special care to ensure they can avoid the occurrences since it symbolizes death. There are several other examples that connect this theory with the Smartphone Industry. If you recall Sony had not launched the Xperia Z4 & later launched the Z3 Plus while Nokia, Samsung & Canon had also ensured that they skipped having the number 4 in their serial numbers and product numbers.

Talking about the device itself, the latest information from China suggest the OnePlus 5 might feature a ceramic body. The company which supplied the ceramic material for the Xiaomi’s Mi MIX also mentioned OnePlus as their client. The post also mentioned the metal build smartphones are said to be bad conductors for 5G signals, which is the reason companies might choose ceramic material for their smartphones in the coming future. While very few countries are getting ready to test 5G network, 4G still needs to be widespread in many countries. Even though OnePlus 5 might feature ceramic body, last year’s OnePlus X was the company’s first-ever first smartphone to feature ceramic body.

When we talk about the ceramic body on the smartphones we had already seen with the Mi MIX that was slippery and collected fingerprint easily. It also has advantages like a higher strength of hardness and is also scratch resistance. There will be no corrosion problems like on metal and can withstand higher temperatures. Even with these advantages, the production of ceramic smartphones is much harder than using glass or metal and is also a costlier affair. Talking about the OnePlus 5, it will be running on Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box by the time of official launch. Recently, the company launched the OnePlus 3T running on Android 6.0.1 marshmallow based Oxygen OS. Both OnePlus 3T and OnePlus are also confirmed to get the latest Nougat update by the end of this month.

The company might continue with the 5.5-inch Optic AMOLED display. Since Virtual Reality (VR) is expected to go mainstream in 2017, we hope OnePlus to offer Quad HD resolution display. The flagship devices from other manufacturers are going with QuadHD panels since the Full HD panels will not offer the best viewing experience with Google DayDream. Just like the 2016 OnePlus smartphones, we might be seeing 6GB of RAM in the OnePlus 5. As the OnePlus 3T is launched less than a month back, the OnePlus 5 is expected to go official only in the Q2 2017. Stay tuned on Phone Radar for more updates!