OnePlus has put the OnePlus 16 up for pre-reservation in China before giving it a launch date, and the listing on its official store has shown more of the phone than the leaks managed, with the full design, all 3 colors and every RAM and storage pairing laid out. A date still has not been named, although most reports expect the launch late this month or in October.
The OnePlus 16 Looks Almost The Same As The OnePlus 15
Anyone holding last year’s phone would struggle to tell the 2 apart from the back. The square metal camera island with its rounded corners has been kept, so this year’s changes were made in the finishes rather than in the shape. The only physical addition spotted so far is a customizable AI key along the left edge.
3 Colors, And Only Tomorrow Starlight Lights Up
- Dark Forest, a plain black with no pattern on it
- Mars Masterpiece, a light orange that comes across closer to salmon in some of the official photos
- Tomorrow Starlight, a grey finish that a few outlets have been calling silver
The orange and grey versions both carry a pattern across the rear panel, which reports have linked to the surface of Mars. Tomorrow Starlight goes further than that, since OnePlus has built an interactive breathing light into its back that picks out the logo and a set of celestial coordinates, while a nano-grating texture throws a moving starlight effect whenever the phone gets tilted. Buyers who want the light will have to pick Tomorrow Starlight, because neither of the other 2 colors has it. Its silk glass has also been treated to resist fingerprints.
Storage Starts At 256GB And Goes Up To 1TB
4 configurations are listed for China: 12GB with 256GB, 12GB with 512GB, 16GB with 512GB and 16GB with 1TB. Reservations run through the OnePlus online store there, though no price has been attached to any of them yet.
Only The 165Hz Screen Has Been Officially Confirmed
Apart from the looks and the storage, the single spec OnePlus has signed off on is a system-wide 165Hz refresh rate. Leakers have said the panel will be a flat BOE X4 OLED that pushes to 185Hz in supported games.
Everything else is still coming from leaks and a Geekbench listing. That listing showed the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro paired with 16GB of RAM and running Android 17 with ColorOS 17, and earlier reports have added a 200MP main camera, a 9,000mAh battery and a 6.78-inch AMOLED display. OnePlus has not put its name to any of those figures.
