OnePlus thought about removing the 3.5mm headphone jack from its devices in the past, as suggested by a number of prototypes the company recently showed to PCMag. The image that can be seen above and the video below reveal several experimental designs the firm toyed with in the past, some of which lack the popular audio port that many original equipment manufacturers started removing from their smartphones in recent years. OnePlus is not one of them, though its research and development efforts appear to indicate the company is keeping its options open. Its latest product that it unveiled in the form of the OnePlus 6 this spring features a metal-and-glass build, much like all of its prototypes, though the four colors it launched so far are just a tiny fraction of what was in the works at one point or another, as per the same source.
The OEM even created an experimental OnePlus 6 rear plate whose finish ranges from blue to violet, depending on the angle from which one is looking at it, thus acting in a manner akin to the Twilight variants of Huawei’s P20 and P20 Pro Android flagships. One company engineer said this particular color was never planned for commercialization and was only prototyped as a proof-for-concept, to inform the management that hue-shifting handsets aren’t outside of the scope of the company’s technological capabilities.
The firm is expected to follow up on its latest device with the OnePlus 6T in late 2018, whereas its 2019 plans include striking a retail partnership with at least one wireless carrier in the United States and delivering a 5G phone, as founder and CEO Pete Lau revealed last month. The OnePlus 6 is the company’s fastest-selling handset to date, having managed to hit a million sales just over three weeks after being released, thus performing about four times better than either the OnePlus 5 or OnePlus 5T.