Samsung beware: OnePlus 10 Ultra could come soon(ish) to challenge the Galaxy S22 Ultra
For better or for worse, OnePlus is certainly not the same company now that it was just one or two years ago, revising its product launch strategy in a number of key ways following a merger with Oppo that bitterly disappointed many of the brand's hardcore fans and longtime devotees.
After unveiling the China-first 10 Pro flagship considerably earlier in the year than 2021's 9 Pro, it remains unclear if a non-Pro OnePlus 10 is also on the horizon, and if it is, whether or not we should expect a global debut right off the bat for said "regular" variant.
Meanwhile, a wild new rumor suggests the company could essentially take a page out of Samsung's playbook at some point in 2022 and expand the OnePlus 10 family with an Ultra model. According to tech journalist, data engineer, and occasional leaker Yogesh Brar, this unprecedented ultra-high-end device might be in the "EVT phase" right now, which sadly doesn't tell us a great deal about a prospective release timeline, let alone an expected spec sheet.
For those unfamiliar with the industry's product development lingo, EVT stands for Engineering Validation and Testing and is always followed by DVT (Design Validation and Testing) and PVT (Production Validation and Testing) before a smartphone is officially ready to be shipped to its end users.
The many possible challenges a device manufacturer can experience during all those stages makes it pretty much impossible to anticipate when the OnePlus 10 Ultra could see daylight even if we assume this rumor is 100 percent correct, which is obviously never a guarantee.
That's especially true amid global chip shortages that are still a problem for a lot of major companies, and before you get too excited, you should know post-EVT product cancellations are also a fairly frequent occurrence.
Bottom line, the OnePlus 10 Ultra may end up being released sometime during the second half of this year... or not. Interestingly, Yogesh Brar expects this bad boy to take its cues from an Oppo Find X5 Pro Plus version that's also not a thing yet.
Undoubtedly envisioned as a direct Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra rival, the 10 Ultra is likely to pack Qualcomm's next state-of-the-art SoC, but other than that, we have absolutely no idea what to expect from an even better phone than the already outstanding OnePlus 10 Pro.
FCC OKs Cingular\'s purchase of AT&T Wireless
Things that are NOT allowed: