Will the OnePlus 16 be a proper gaming phone instead of a traditional flagship?

Remember the Alien? No, not just any alien, but the Alien – a.k.a. the Xenomorph? Back when they were developing it for the Alien (1979) space horror masterpiece, H. R. Giger and Ridley Scott famously came to the conclusion that "no eyes is scarier". It made the creature truly unnatural and chilling. Boy, were they right about it.

Looking at the OnePlus 16 latest rumors, I'd say that "no bezels is sexier". That is, if these rumors turn out to be true. Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but the latest leaks speak of extremely narrow bezels on the side of the OnePlus 16's display panel.

Apart from the mini-dopamine hit – yeah, who wouldn't like a (sort of) bezel-less phone?! – these rumors made me wonder what the OnePlus 16 will be like as a whole.

Are we looking at the next master gaming phone?

Bezels under a millimeter

So, the most recent leaks say the OnePlus 16's bezels could be less than 1mm. For reference, the OnePlus 15's bezels are 1.15mm thin and the Galaxy S25 Ultra's – about 1.3mm. We're dealing with a minimal change in size here, but I think such a change can absolutely be perceived by our eyes.

It's better to have a bezel sum of, say, 1.6mm (if the OnePlus 16 manages to slim down to 0.8mm) instead of the 2.6mm total of the S25 Ultra, right? That's a whole millimeter of difference that you won't need a microscope to detect. Aesthetics aside, this could give you a better visual experience.

Will other phones suddenly become obsolete? Depends on how you look at it.

The adaptation phenomenon

The best way to tell whether a person is using a flagship or not is to show them a mid-range phone and ask them how they feel about the bezels on it.

Something like the Pixel 9a:



If they say something in the line of "Uhmm… what do you mean? There are bezels around the screen, yes. I don't understand the question! I don't feel anything at all", this means they're either using a mid-ranger themselves or an even cheaper phone.

If, however, they shiver and become pale upon being presented with the image above, this means they're proud and posh owners of a flagship.

Like the Galaxy S25 Ultra:



Now that's sleek, right? Notice how much thinner those black stripes are around the display.

Now imagine the OnePlus 16 and its rumored ultra-thin bezels!

Bezels are a funny thing. You don't realize you have thick ones until you start using a phone with thinner ones. Ironically, one quickly stops appreciating this because of… adaptation.

When it's brand-new, you unlock your phone, and you marvel at it: everything looks so cool. You don't even need to open any app. Then you lock it, only to repeat the same process fifteen times in a row.

Then one day, you wake up, you unlock your phone and you no longer notice anything special about it. You've started using the tool, not merely observing and admiring it. As with any tool, you get accustomed to it and with time, what was special in the beginning becomes a given.

This goes both ways – one can become accustomed to both the thin flagship bezels experience just as easily as to the thick, voluptuous bezels treatment.

It's only when you've been using high-end, thin-bezeled phones and you switch back to a thick-bezeled mid-ranger that you experience a mild culture shock. But you stop paying attention to it quickly after, if that's your only available phone. Yeah, at night, you might dream about that other phone, but that'll pass too.

OnePlus 15: the covert gaming phone of 2025

It's important to mention the OnePlus 15 here, because I wouldn't be surprised if the OnePlus 16 heads in the direction of becoming a gaming-oriented phone – and its predecessor was (is) a sort of gaming phone.

It certainly looks nothing like a proper, dedicated gaming flagship (like the RedMagic 10S Pro, for example). Ironically, the OnePlus 15 doesn't even strike me as a high-end, luxury flagship as well. With its minimalistic design and bland square-ish camera island, it poses as a harmless mid-ranger. In reality, it's a killer machine with Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 under the hood and a massive battery that charges superfast and puts all Galaxy S Ultra and iPhone Pro Max models to shame.

However, the makers of the OnePlus 15 decided that cameras are not that important. That's a bit of a shocker, given that flagships are only as good as their camera setups, as a rule of thumb.

What if the OnePlus 15 is not your traditional flagship? What if it would rather not focus on cameras but on gaming?

That's an argument I can't attack right away. The OnePlus 15 simply comes with too many gaming-oriented features for it to be entirely wrong.

The OnePlus 15's gaming goodies in a nutshell:

• The display refresh rate is 165Hz, instead of the 120Hz that virtually all other flagships come with;
• A custom ±4000 DPS gyroscope that translates subtle hand movements into precise in-game control;
• A massive vapor chamber with an advanced thermal design;
• BOE X3 display material instead of the BOE X2
• A massive battery and cutting-edge chipset.

Now, most of the list above is valid for numerous other flagships, too. But I think that the 165Hz refresh rate and the gyroscope spill the beans quite handsomely. Because, speaking frankly, nobody but gamers will take advantage of these features.

The current OnePlus 16 rumors have it that the phone could come with a 240Hz display refresh rate and a mind-boggling 9,000 mAh battery. That, paired with the ultra-thin bezels, sounds like a serious gaming handset!

And what about the flagship camera experience? Well, we just might get a OnePlus 16 Ultra model – the first of its kind.

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