OnePlus 6T - Will T stand for 'transparent' this year?

If you follow the smartphone industry closely, you would probably be aware of Xiaomi’s Mi 8 Explorer Edition smartphone. For those who aren’t aware, the device comes with a transparent/clear back, showing off what the company initially claimed as real components, but later turned out to be fake circuitry.

So while Xiaomi pulled off a gimmick, we think OnePlus would want to avoid this kind of stunt. But wait, is OnePlus even coming up with a transparent back phone? Well, yes, and we have several reasons to believe so – that’s what well be discussing here.

‘OnePlus’ and ‘transparent back phone’ were two words that probably no one said in the same breath publicly until Zack Nelson (a.k.a JerryRigEverything on YouTube) took a OnePlus 6 (which features glass back) and managed to turn its back cover transparent.

Of course, that was not the first time Zack did this to a smartphone, and the Mi 8 Explorer Edition wasn’t even official at that point in time. But if you look back now, it was apparently JerryRigEverything who set the ball rolling at some level.

Anyway, moving on, live images of a transparent back OnePlus 6 surfaced on Weibo (China’s Twitter) last month.

What’s more, OnePlus CEO even reshared the images from his account, asking users to be safe when carrying out such modifications.

Agreed, JerryRigEverything’s treatment and images of a user modified OnePlus 6 cannot be a basis even for speculating the existence of transparent back OnePlus 6. But the series of developments that took place thereafter – specifically in the last few weeks – forced us to think if OnePlus is going the transparent back route.

It all started with the ‘give away’ of the JerryRigEverything’s OnePlus 6 Clear Back Edition that OnePlus announced on its official forum. Of course, only one such device was available to be given away, so when a user shared their sadness on the low probability of them winning the exclusive handset, a OnePlus staff member dropped a clear hint that this may not be the last OnePlus 6 of its kind.

Then last week, Ard Boudeling (who is social lead at OnePlus) sent out a cryptic tweet with an image showing a OnePlus 6 featuring a semi transparent back.

Yeah, the text is in no way related to the clear back. But what’s the point in asking people if they love Qualcomm? Most people who are into mobile SoCs presumably already do. Plus, the standard OnePlus 6 already comes with the latest and the greatest Snapdragon 845 SoC.

Is there a new flagship Snapdragon chipset coming? Yes, but likely not this year. On the other hand, if history is any indication, OnePlus is expected to launch its next phone this year itself.

So it all boils down to the transparent back tease, which we think will manifest in form of a new OnePlus 6 variant.

If you’re still not convinced, we aren’t done yet either. Co-founder Carl Pei also took to Twitter around the same time as Boudeling to share a photo that shows him (seemingly) holding a phone.

https://twitter.com/getpeid/status/1025702092634238979

Zoom the image a bit, and you’ll realize the phone has a transparent back, showing off the internals (including red battery). This also undoubtedly qualifies as a teaser of sorts.

Note: The image also prominently shows off a wristband…….yeah, right….. but I’ll leave that discussion for some other day.

And last but not the least, a tweet from the official OnePlus Twitter account, which includes a video that primarily focuses on the red OnePlus 6, but cleverly gives you a glimpse (0:09 sec onwards) of what the same device with transparent back would look like.

So there you go. Enough indications that OnePlus 6 with clear back exists. Now comes the question of when it will arrive. Well, sadly, we could not find any strong indications for its availability time frame.

But we can make some logical assumptions. A OnePlus forum moderator recently said OnePlus 6T will be out in the coming months. However, on the contrary, the OnePlus India GM had dropped hints suggesting the company may not be keen on releasing a T variant this year. Reason was no new & useful hardware upgrades that they can foresee at the moment.

What if both forum moderator and company executive are correct? Confused? I mean a OnePlus 6T which is no better than OnePlus 6 in terms of hardware, but different in terms of looks (a transparent back).

If that indeed turns out to be true, then we can see the device arriving in November, as has been a norm with T variants so far. Oh, and yes, this year’s T should stand for ‘transparent’ in that case.

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