OnePlus 13 Flagship Might Swap Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 For This Chip

We may have to drop our presumptions of the next OnePlus 13 being powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 SoC, folks. No, we're not talking about OnePlus ditching Qualcomm for MediaTek or UniSoc silicon. However, there is chatter that the OnePlus 13 may harbor a new Qualcomm chipset called the Snapdragon 8 Elite with Oryon cores, and that it may be a stormer.

Over on Chinese social media site Weibo, Qualcomm showed a teaser video ahead of its upcoming Snapdragon Summit. The video briefly shows off a new chipset deemed the Snapdragon 8 Elite made for the premium mobile market. What stands out is that the 8 Elite features Oryon cores, which if you've been up to speed on Snapdragon X Elite laptop news, you'll see the exciting connection there.

What has people in the smartphone world buzzing, however, is the unnamed phone the 8 Elite is rendered with. At around the 9-second mark, viewers can see a silhouette of a device very reminiscent of the design of the OnePlus 11, 12, and (perhaps) 13. The large round camera island at the top left is undeniably OnePlus, which of course has stirred up the rumor waters that Qualcomm will feature the 8 Elite in the OnePlus 13.

So far only Xiaomi has confirmed that it will be using the Snapdragon 8 Elite in its upcoming Xiaomi 15 flagship, but that phone has a squared-off camera island, so it can't be the phone featured in the video. Nonetheless, we have questions:

• Does this mean Qualcomm will be producing the 8 Gen 4 alongside the 8 Elite? This is less and less likely, based on multiple reports claiming that Qualcomm is rebranding the 8 Gen 4 as the 8 Elite.
• With the Snapdragon X Elite-based Oryon cores on tap, could the significant boost in performance also mean a significant increase in price for the OnePlus 13?

The OnePlus is expected to be announced in December in China, so we won't necessarily have long to find out how much of all this is true. With much of the device expected to be rehashed or tweaked of the OnePlus 12, having a chipset with the clout of the Snapdragon X Elite might give it some nice bragging rights.