First look at the crazy OnePlus concept phone: world's first with active liquid cooling

Mature? Yes. Refined? Sure! But exciting? Well, not so much really!

We live in a world of glass and metal phones where the most exciting news is... well, around a new color option, at best!

But innovation is certainly still possible, and I witnessed just that at the OnePlus MWC presentation for their new concept phone.

Yes, what you are seeing above is a very real active cooling system on a very real and functioning smartphone. There is liquid flowing through those pipes, cooling the phone and also making for one incredible design highlight.

Upon first inspecting the device, pretty much every journalist in the room had the same reaction: but... is this really real? Are we really looking at actual liquid moving through actual pipes inside the phone? Or... is it just an animation?!

OnePlus assures us it's all very real, and the company is even a bit concerned about our questions as it seems to have done a job too good with the design here, so much so that many users might actually think this is just some fancy animation. It is not.

The technology is actually incredibly complex and absolutely fascinating.

Cramming a whole cooling system inside a PC is a daunting task, but try doing this in a smartphone. Well, I guess it's the complexity that prevented others from trying.

I am not sure what is more exciting about this: the incredible look as if you had blue veins running through the phone, much like a living being, or the pure functionality of having an actual liquid cooling system that far surpasses the capabilities of passive coolers used currently. Gamers should be happy to see close to zero throttling while playing Genshin Impact, that's for sure.

However, for most people, it might just be the industrial look rather than the functionality. And let's be honest, the average person probably does not need liquid cooling on their smartphone.

The design that OnePlus showed was similar to the OnePlus 11 5G, but with one important distinction: flatter sides that made it feel much easier to grip and hold. Much like the Galaxy S23 Ultra, this might just be our favorite new design trend. It's not a flat-side design like we have on the iPhone series, and it might be better because it provides both the grip and the comfort of a slight curvature.

The other cool thing OnePlus has going for this design is that technically, this is a design that would suit a gaming phone, but it is not tacky like your average gaming phone.

No RGB lights here or any other lights! In my books, that's a win, but hey, tastes differ.

So far, what you are seeing is merely a concept, a product that showcases an exciting new technology that OnePlus has been working on in the past couple of years.

Will it come to a real device? Will this be the design of some hypothetical OnePlus 11 Ultra of sorts?

OnePlus declines to comment, but something about the smile on the face of company representatives tells us that it could be on a phone very soon. And we also saw the same happy smile when someone mentioned foldable phones.

OnePlus certainly does not have any official comment just yet, but the company seems to have found new vigor in 2023 and you can expect to hear a lot more from it in the future. And we kind of like this.