The OnePlus 16 is the company’s most interesting phone in years

is a news editor with over a decade’s experience in journalism. He previously worked at Android Police and Tech Advisor.

Today the OnePlus 16 launched in China, the company’s first flagship phone since quitting both the US and European markets this summer. As luck would have it, it also looks like the company’s best phone in some time.

Like most OnePlus phones, the 16 is positioned around performance, with a Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chipset, and up to 1TB of storage and 16GB of RAM. That’s backed up by an enormous 9,000mAh silicon-carbon battery, one of the biggest seen in any Android flagship yet. 100W wired and 50W wireless charging complete the power setup.

On the display front, the phone jumps to a 185Hz OLED panel for the first time. That’ll not only be used for 185fps gaming in compatible titles, but can also run at up to 165Hz throughout the system UI — a first for high refresh rate panels like this.

Image: OnePlus

Even the cameras, not usually OnePlus’ strong suit, have had a meaningful upgrade. The main camera has a higher resolution (200 megapixels), larger sensor (1/1.4-inch-type), and faster aperture (f/1.4) than the OnePlus 15’s. That should help, given we found that phone’s camera had frustrating “imitations in low light.” 50-megapixel ultrawide and telephoto cameras round out the rear trio, and the latter also enjoys a big bump to a 1/1.95-inch sensor.

Image: OnePlus

There’s a design flourish too, with the phone’s silver finish including LED lighting that features a big “16” and what the company claims is a set of galactic coordinates. While the shapes of the lights are fixed, they’ll reportedly flash with different rhythms to notify you of calls, messages, battery level, and more.

The OnePlus 16 is available in China starting from ¥5,699 (about $850). With OnePlus no longer in either the US or Europe, there’s no hope of a launch for the 16 in either market.

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