OnePlus 8 leaked with disappointingly little RAM but a great chipset

OnePlus 7T Pro
The OnePlus 8 might not be much better than the OnePlus 7T Pro, above (Image credit: Future)

OnePlus phones used to be described as ‘flagship killers’, offering more power than a typical flagship at a lower price, but prices have been rising in recent years, and based on a new benchmark, one or more of the OnePlus 8 models might not have other competitors beat when it comes to specs.

A Geekbench listing for a phone with the model number IN2025 has been spotted by GSMArena, and it mentions the top-end Snapdragon 865 chipset, but lists just 8GB of RAM.

Now, 8GB of RAM isn’t bad, but it’s at the very low end for what we're expecting from flagships in 2020. It’s no better than the OnePlus 7T or the entry-level version of the Samsung Galaxy S20, while the Galaxy S20 Ultra comes with up to 16GB of the memory.

Of course, the OnePlus 8 isn’t going to cost anywhere near as much the S20 Ultra, but it’s still slightly disappointing to see no rise from the previous model (though there may also be configurations with more RAM).

This could even be the OnePlus 8 Pro

The situation could be even worse though, as there’s a chance this is the OnePlus 8 Pro. You see, the name of the phone isn’t actually mentioned, but OnePlus phones with the model numbers IN201x and IN202x have appeared on a database from the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), as spotted by Nashville Chatter.

The site speculated that the higher numbers – those with 202 in the name – were versions of the OnePlus 8 Pro, while the lower ones were the standard OnePlus 8. That theory was backed up by an earlier benchmark showing a phone with the model number IN2023 as having a respectable 12GB of RAM. But now we have a 202 number with just 8GB.

So it’s possible in fact that the OnePlus 8 Pro would come in 8GB and 12GB configurations, similar to the OnePlus 7T Pro, and the OnePlus 8 would be available just with 8GB of RAM, matching the OnePlus 7T.

While we’d expect performance to still be very solid in that case, it would be disappointing not to see more of an improvement, especially in the face of flagships like the Galaxy S20 range and the Xiaomi Mi 10 – where even the basic, non-Pro model has up to 12GB of RAM, and a potentially lower price than the OnePlus 8.

Of course, it’s also possible that this benchmark is showing the rumored OnePlus 8 Lite or something else altogether, so we wouldn’t worry too much yet. We expect the OnePlus 8 range will be announced in or around May, but we’ll be reporting on all the credible news and rumors before then, so stay tuned for more information.

James Rogerson

James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.