OnePlus 9T could finally bring better photography with major hardware upgrade

(Image credit: Aakash Jhaveri)

The OnePlus 9 series brought significantly better photography than its forerunners, but it still fell behind the competition. A new leak suggests that the company will try to claim the crown once again with major camera upgrades on the upcoming OnePlus 9T.

With the OnePlus 9 Pro, we got a big custom Sony image sensor with large pixels, a high-resolution ultra-wide lens with no distortion and a modest telephoto camera. On the software front, it partnered with camera giant Hasselblad to bring realistic colour tuning and post-processing. For the next iteration, the partnership looks set to take things up a notch.

Oneplus 9T 5G Coming Soon in Q3So 9T iS have color os 11 Global and 108 MP Hasselblad Quad Camera pic.twitter.com/JVMDkfyLJ2July 2, 2021

A Twitter leakster that goes by the name of American Megatrends and often shares information around unreleased Chinese smartphones states that the OnePlus 9T will move to a 108MP quad-camera arrangement, a step up from the 50MP primary sensor on the OnePlus 9 Pro. It’s also expected that Hasselblad will play a bigger role in the development and tuning of these cameras, but it’s unclear if that will extend to hardware changes just yet.

Samsung has supplied 108MP cameras to a lot of high-end and mid-range smartphones this year, but never to a flagship device from the BBK Group. This change could be another indication that the ISOCELL HM3 sensor will not be exclusive to Samsung, allowing other OEMs access to the best that is currently available. The same camera is seen on the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra.

Not just about the hardware

OnePlus Nord N200 5G — (Image credit: Future)

The leak also mentions that the OnePlus 9T will be unveiled in the third quarter of 2021, which overlaps with the September timeline that was previously tipped — six months after the launch of the OnePlus 9 series.

Notably, there seems to be no OnePlus 9T Pro in the pipeline for this season, similar to how there was no OnePlus 8T Pro in 2020. This strategy could also mean that the OnePlus 9T would be cheaper than the 9 Pro, while offering better cameras.

The OnePlus 9T could also be the first smartphone from the company to run on the new Oxygen OS that uses Color OS’s codebase — one of the biggest outcomes of the OnePlus-Oppo merger.

Apart from these changes, we expect the OnePlus 9T to offer specifications such as the Snapdragon 888 Plus chipset, a high refresh rate AMOLED screen, Android 12, 65W fast charging, etc.

Aakash is the engine that keeps TechRadar India running, using his experience and ideas to help consumers get to the right products via reviews, buying guides and explainers. Apart from phones, computers and cameras, he is obsessed with electric vehicles.