OnePlus dials Leica to help improve camera performance for its next flagship

OnePlus 8T
(Image credit: Aakash Jhaveri)

Smartphone brands often collaborate with other brands to come up with a co-branded device or to add value to their devices. One such common collaboration is seen in the camera department where smartphone makers along with camera or lens makers look to improve the camera performance.

We saw the good ol’ Nokia and Zeiss partnership during Nokia’s heydays and Huawei’s collaboration with Leica resulting in some amazing monochrome shots has been there since the last few years. Just the other day we had Vivo announcing a longterm partnership with Zeiss for obvious reasons.

Now it is being reported that even OnePlus is looking to rope in Leica for its upcoming smartphones. While a leakster has revealed that this partnership could be seen in the upcoming OnePlus 9 series, it is not known if it is a long-term collaboration or it’s one odd experiment.

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OnePlus which has had stellar success due to its optimized user interface, devices with top-of-the-line specs, blazing-fast charging technology yet it’s the camera performance that has often been the weakest link when compared to the devices from Google, Samsung or Apple.

In a recent announcement, OnePlus’s CEO Pete Lau had confirmed that the company is looking to improve their smartphone camera both in terms of hardware and software. With flagship devices and the segment that the company focuses on, it is criminal to not have this gap covered.

Lau, without naming this partnership with the German company, had hinted that the company is looking to focus on improving photography on both - the flagship as well as the Nord lineup.

That said, there is no official communication from either side as of now and after the recent events that took place at OnePlus, it looks like the company is looking to ring in a string of changes which include a literal U-turn from its one-device-a-year policy.

It is also yet not sure if the Huawei-Leica partnership remains intact though with uncertainty looming large over Huawei's future, we may see OnePlus remaining the exclusive partner with Leica.

Jitendra Soni

Jitendra has been working in the Internet Industry for the last 7 years now and has written about a wide range of topics including gadgets, smartphones, reviews, games, software, apps, deep tech, AI, and consumer electronics.