Only three months into 2017, we’ve already gotten our hands onto flagship devices from top mobile makers. But, Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus, who is known as the flagship killer, is now also gearing up to release its next smartphone. Thus, as expected in today’s times, rumors and speculations have started swirling on the interwebs already.
Today’s leak comes as a potential confirmation for the naming of OnePlus’ next flagship smartphone. With certification documents coming straight from the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, it appears that the codename for the handset is A5000 and it falls in line with the company’s naming criterion from the past.
Previous OnePlus handsets were codenamed as — A0001, A2000, and A3000 for their flagship smartphone lineup — OnePlus One, 2 and 3 respectively. If we assume OnePlus is following the same guidelines, then it is safe to assume that the next flagship smartphone will be called OnePlus 5.
Yep, that OnePlus A5000 is real. Guess this really is the OnePlus 5. (seen at MIIT, Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) pic.twitter.com/JMHfGK6D4s
— Roland Quandt (@rquandt) April 13, 2017
However, there’s surely one minute thing that might have ticked you off. The naming scheme for OnePlus’ flagship devices skips on the number four and jumps straight to five. While there’s a possibility that OnePlus may justify skipping one of the numerals in their flagship device lineup like Microsoft did with Windows 10. They skipped on nine, jumped straight to ten but never explained the new name but it was most likely to differentiate the OS, which now works more like a service. The Redmond giant is currently delivering iterative updates to the operating system, instead of releasing a completely new experience with a new name.
But, the most simple explanation for the Chinese phone maker not naming its next flagship as the OnePlus 5 is tetraphobia. In the Chinese world, where the company is based and operates from, the number four sounds similar to the word for death in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese languages.
This is similar to the notion of considering thirteen (13) as an unlucky number. But, OnePlus has neither confirmed the moniker for its next smartphone nor has it provided any explanation yet — so take the explanation with a grain of salt. This belief system, however, hasn’t stopped giants like Xiaomi and Samsung from releasing devices with the word ‘four’ in it. And the Redmi Note 4 was one of its best-selling (fastest) devices in India.
As for the rumored specifications, OnePlus 5 is expected to be powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor — which will only be made available to other phone makers once Samsung stops hogging it for its Galaxy S8 lineup. There is also chatter about the OnePlus being a beast, i.e the very first smartphone with a massive 8GB RAM. This would most likely be one of the bigger variants of the device, where the standard model would include only 4GB or 6GB of RAM.
Additionally, OnePlus is finally expected to introduce a 5.5-inch display with QuadHD (2K) resolution and dual curved glass — which is similar to Samsung Galaxy Edge devices. The camera on this device is expected to be a 23-megapixel shooter this time around. The details on other specs, such as the battery, security, and storage are sparse but we’ll know for sure in the coming weeks.
