OnePlus 9E just leaked — but what’s the point?

OnePlus 9E just leaked — but what's the point?

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

How many phones is too many to release? According to a newly tweeted rumor nigh the OnePlus 9 and its assorted models, OnePlus may be planning to trying to find the answer to that question early next year.

We're expecting OnePlus to release its new flagship sometime in the spring, since OnePlus tends to come up out with a new summit-of-the-line device every six months or so. That would be the OnePlus 9, with the upstart telephone maker coming out with both standard and pro versions, as has been its wont in recent years.

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Merely hold on — phone leaker Max Jambor took to Twitter to declare that a tertiary model volition back-trail the OnePlus nine and OnePlus nine Pro. That would be the OnePlus 9E, which looks to be an entry-level model for anyone who finds the OnePlus 9'due south regular price to be too high.

Posting a follow-up caption about the OnePlus 9e, Max Jambor says the idea behind the new model is to have a folio out of Samsung's book with its flagship lineup and produce a model for every price indicate.

You may recollect that before this year, Samsung added the Galaxy S20 FE, which delivers almost of the features of the regular Galaxy lineup but for $300 less.

The OnePlus 9E would theoretically take a similar approach, debuting at a lower toll and trimming a couple features here and there. What those features would be, though, is anyone'due south guess.

While we've seen CAD drawings for the OnePlus 9 Pro and OnePlus ix, we know very little most the features for these upcoming phones, other than they're probable to have fast-refreshing displays and support 65W charging.

Nosotros've heard rumors of OnePlus coming out with a lower-cost flagship device before. Prior to the OnePlus viii'southward release, rumors suggested that a OnePlus 8 Low-cal was in the works. That phone never materialized, unless you want to count the OnePlus Nord.

But why a third OnePlus 9 model?

That'southward why nosotros're a bit confused past the OnePlus 9E rumors. OnePlus already has a telephone that's stripped out some features in exchange for a lower toll — the OnePlus Nord. While that detail model never reached the U.S., OnePlus has since announced the OnePlus Nord N10 5G and OnePlus Nord N100, two more low-cost handsets.

Add the iii rumored OnePlus 9 models to the mix, and we're looking at a phone lineup with half-a-dozen models. That'south a far weep from the days when OnePlus put out just one telephone every six months (although you lot could choose different amounts of RAM and storage).

Should the OnePlus 9E come to pass, the brunt will exist on OnePlus to clearly differentiate all of its phones and explain how the variously priced models would offer their own unique feature sets.

If OnePlus can pull that off, consumers will likely welcome the extra choice. No one's actually lament that there are four iPhone 12 models to choose from.

We've got a long fashion to go before the OnePlus 9E hits the scene, with a potential release date in March for the new OnePlus 9 lineup. Expect to hear a lot of details about the new phones between now then.

Philip Michaels is a senior editor at Tom'south Guide. He has strong opinions about Apple, the Oakland Athletics and sometime movies. Follow him at @PhilipMichaels.