When it comes to primary camera sensors, OnePlus has a knack towards Sony. Since the inception of the brand, the Chinese OEM uses Sony’s flagship grade camera modules in their phones.

Well, you just can’t achieve a top notch camera by incorporating a high end camera module in your phone. Unlike the CPU or GPU (or should I say SoC?), manufacturers need to tune up the camera hardware a lot and implement separate post-processing software stack to produce proper pictures.

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OnePlus 3T used Sony IMX298 camera sensor for rear camera

OnePlus is known for their OK-ish camera performance. Unlike Huawei, Samsung or even Google Pixels, photography is not the primary strength of their phones. In fact, they released a horribly complicated camera stack in OnePlus 3/3T, which couldn’t be used by third party developers properly.

We’re looking for ways to provide our camera experience for non OxygenOS ROMs. No interest in open sourcing the camera stack.

Carl Pei

After Carl’s assurance, OnePlus did revamped the underlying codebase. Later on, they delivered full Camera2 API support and bindrized camera HALs for newer phones. The latter was a mandatory prerequisite for bringing Project Treble support for OnePlus 5/5T.

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OnePlus 5T

OnePlus used 16 MP Sony IMX398 as the primary rear camera sensor on both OnePlus 5 and 5T. In the subsequent year, they went for 16 MP Sony IMX519 sensor for OnePlus 6/6T.

Well, there is an interesting pattern. In one of the early OnePlus daily dose articles, we talked about the not-so-secret relationship between OPPO and OnePlus. Believe it or not, we got a new tag team player here.

Realme, an offshoot of OPPO, decided to use IMX398 as the primary rear camera sensor in 2018’s Realme 2 Pro. Call it a coincidence, but the phonemaker chose IMX519 for the successor, i.e. the Realme 3 Pro.

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Realme 3 Pro

Thanks to the early leaks, we now know that the upcoming OnePlus 7 series will use the 48 MP Sony IMX586 sensor as the primary back camera module. What about the distant unborn cousin aka Realme 4 Pro? Decide yourself. ?

Talking about OnePlus 7, an alleged specs sheet has been surfaced. The sheet should be originated from Baidu, so take it with a pinch of salt.

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Source: Slashleaks

Leakster Max J., who goes by the alias @Samsung_News_, already published most of these data. In fact, we stumbled on 12 GB RAM variant of OnePlus 7 yesterday, thus the list indeed looks incomplete.

One thing is rather interesting though: the battery capacity of the regular OnePlus 7 model is allegedly higher (4,150 mAh) than the Pro model (4,000 mAh). Quite odd, in my opinion.

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OnePlus 7 (regular variant) leaked render

The leaks related to OnePlus 7 accessories are popping up like mushrooms anyway. After the OnePlus 7 Pro screen protectors, we now have the same for the regular OnePlus 7 model.

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The leak came from Slashleaks contributor Sudhanshu Ambhore, who wasn’t entirely sure about the authenticity of the image. The lack of a notch is kinda debatable, as previous leaks suggest that the regular variant will carry a OnePlus 6T-esque waterdrop notch.

While OnePlus is busy slowing down everybody’s phone, Amazon India kickstarted another round of crazy discounts. As a part of the Amazon Summer Sale, the 8 GB RAM and 128 GB storage variant of OnePlus 6T will be available for ₹32,999, which is ₹9,000 less than the MSRP (₹41,999).

The Summer Sale will begin from May 4 (the day after tomorrow) and will last until April 7. Although there is no info related to such offers on other RAM/storage variants of OnePlus 6T, we hope Amazon will disclose it later.

Moreover, there will be 10% instant discount for SBI debit and credit card holder. For further details about this stock clearance deal, see here.

On the other hand, OnePlus ignited a massive controversy by including an ‘intelligent’ junk clear module in their stock file manager app in the latest Open Beta builds for OnePlus 6 (OB17) and OnePlus 6T (OB9).

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Notice the cleanup feature of File Manager in the changelog

OnePlus teamed up with Chinese tech giant Tencent and used their cleaning engine in the stock file manager app. The feature is currently live for Indian users.

Not only the app has unrestricted access to personal files and other sensitive data, it’ll going to upload telemetry data to Tencent’s Singapore server, according to the privacy policy.

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The new privacy policy from the updated file manager app

People have already started to protest against the silent introduction of such bloatware by creating petitions and polls across the interweb. For further details, take a look at our article.

That’s it for today. See you guys tomorrow!

PiunikaWeb is a unique initiative that mainly focuses on investigative journalism. This means we do a lot of hard work to come up with news stories that are either ‘exclusive,’ ‘breaking,’ or ‘curated’ in nature. Perhaps that’s the reason our work has been picked by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and more. Do take a tour of our website to get a feel of our work. And if you like what we do, stay connected with us on Twitter (@PiunikaWeb) and other social media channels to receive timely updates on stories we publish.

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Kingshuk De
896 Posts

I came from a mixed background of Statistics and Computer Science. My research domains included embedded computer systems, mobile computing and delay tolerant networks in post-disaster scenarios. Apart from tinkering with gadgets or building hackintosh, I like to hop on various subreddits and forums like MyDigitalLife and XDA.

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