OnePlus 4 Rumors: Will The Upcoming Flagship Struggle Because Of The OnePlus 3’s Success?

OnePlus has definitely achieved what it set out to do in the smartphone market. Entering the industry at a fairly late stage, OnePlus was able to make a significant impact by creating phones that personify the company’s “Never Settle” mantra. With the overwhelming success of the OnePlus 3, rumors are abounding about the release date and specs of its inevitable successor, the OnePlus 4. Though the smartphone maker has not announced any official specs for the upcoming smartphone, speculations about the device have been very encouraging.

After killing the short-lived OnePlus X, the upstart smartphone firm has made it a point to focus on only one primary flagship device. This culminated in the creation of the OnePlus 3, a smartphone that performs far above handsets in its class and competes with the world’s most formidable flagships in both specs and features. What’s particularly great about the OnePlus 3 is the fact that it is affordable, costing roughly half the price of flagship handsets such as the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.

With the success of the OnePlus 3, the OnePlus 4 has some pretty big shoes to fill. For one, it has to live up to the success of its predecessors, attracting both casual smartphone buyers and Android purists alike. The OnePlus 4 must also be better than the OnePlus 3 in all aspects, in order to warrant a justifiable purchase. As much as this is great, however, it might be easier said than done.

Since the company released its first smartphone, the OnePlus One, it created a reputation for offering the best that the industry currently offers. The smartphone maker did this by matching the specs of the best flagships of the day. This trend continued with the OnePlus One’s successor, the OnePlus 2. With the OnePlus 3, however, the upstart firm ended up doing something quite unorthodox.

The OnePlus 3’s spec sheet not only matched the best flagships of 2016. In some respects, it actually exceeded them. The 6GB RAM of the OnePlus 3 alone is 2GB more than the 4GB offered by Samsung in the ill-fated Galaxy Note 7. This, together with a version of Android that is pretty close to the software’s vanilla iteration, made the OnePlus 3 one of the most balanced devices in the market.

It is quite ironic, but in the hyper-competitive smartphone market, OnePlus seemed to have overperformed with its current device. When the OnePlus 4 gets released sometime next year, the OnePlus 3 would most likely still be a very capable device. So capable, in fact, that some users might simply opt to purchase the slightly older, yet definitely more affordable, year-old device. Of course, OnePlus can avoid this by simply making the OnePlus 4 a device that far exceeds its predecessor.

Rumors about the OnePlus 4 point to a smartphone with the words “flagship killer” written all over it. The company might have abandoned the moniker, but considering the rumors emerging about the OnePlus 4 right now, it is hard not to brand the device as such. According to recent speculations, the OnePlus 4 would pack a 5.7-inch 2K AMOLED display, a Snapdragon 830 processor, and 8GB of RAM.

The specs of the Android elite, such as the upcoming Galaxy S8 or the LG G6, have not been leaked yet, but judging by rumors about the OnePlus 4, it seems like the upstart company’s next flagship would be ready to take on the best that the industry has to offer in 2017.

OnePlus has been pretty consistent with the release of its devices, with the company unveiling its flagship devices around the middle of the year. Thus, speculations are high that the OnePlus 4 would be officially unveiled sometime around June or July 2017.

Considering how competitive and dauntless OnePlus is, however, there is a good chance that the upstart smartphone maker would release the OnePlus 4 earlier, to beat the Galaxy S8 and the LG G6 to the market. Samsung usually releases its flagship S Series smartphones early during the year, giving it a pretty good edge against its competitors. If OnePlus beats the S8 to the market, this advantage would be taken by the upstart firm.

The OnePlus 4 is still a long way away from seeing an actual release. Despite this, however, rumors about its specs and release date are already saturating the internet. When the company entered the smartphone market, it aimed to offer consumers only the best for a reasonable price. Over the years, the company has done just that. As of now, all signs point to the OnePlus 4 living up to the firm’s reputation.

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[Featured Image by Santeri Viinamäki|Wikimedia Commons|Cropped and Resized|CC BY-SA 4.0]