In a new report citing insider sources, OnePlus is set to unveil a OnePlus 9 Lite device, alongside the release of the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro early next year. This move is believed to be in motion because the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro will be the quite expensive, so OnePlus needs a device for budget-minded folks to choose over the Galaxy S20 FE and Pixel 5. Considering the way OnePlus prices have climbed since the beginning, it makes sense to us.
According to the source, both the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro will be powered by the latest Snapdragon 888 silicon and will also feature updated hardware. The less expensive OnePlus 9 Lite will feature a Snapdragon 865 processor and look very, very similar to the OnePlus 8T and offer a lot of the same specs — higher refresh rate display, same cameras, etc.
While no concrete pricing is available for this Lite model, it feels like a safe assumption that OnePlus would target the $600 range. Right now, that’s an extremely competitive price range with both Google and Samsung battling it out. The OnePlus 9 is believed to start around $780 to $800, which is really getting up there when you consider where the company started all those years ago. Factor in that the OnePlus 9 Pro could be a couple hundreds dollars more and it becomes clear that OnePlus should indeed be thinking about offering a great phone at a lower price.
It’s expected for OnePlus to announce all three OnePlus 9 models alongside each other in Q1 next year. That’s coming up quite soon.
Personal note, I hate the “Lite” name, it makes the phone sound rather lame. However, if there is a company I can trust to pack a ton of great specs into a Lite package, it’d be OnePlus. They tend to focus on what people want, even if they don’t quite nail it every time. We can at least expect good performance and good hardware.
