OnePlus is going all out on huge specs for what might be its last phone

For about as long as it's been around, OnePlus's phones have always been some of the most interesting devices on the market. OnePlus's ethos is to supply as much bang for your buck as possible, and that means its phones are often amongst the most powerfully specced phones you can buy.

OnePlus seems to be pushing that idea to its limit, if leaks of the OnePlus 16's specs are correct (via Phone Arena). However, will OnePlus even be around to launch this phone, or is this a last and desperate roll of the dice from a company beset by shutdown and merger rumors?

240Hz, LPDDR6, 200MP cameras and more — the OnePlus 16 could be a monster

Nobody could ever accuse the OnePlus 15 of being a low-powered phone, but if these rumors are correct, then the OnePlus 16 will knock it into a cocked hat.

It's normal for successors to have higher specs, but the rumors from Digital Chat Station claim the phone will have the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro processor, LPDDR6 RAM, and a 240Hz refresh rate.

As if that wasn't enough, the OnePlus 16 would also get a massive upgrade to a 200-megapixel zoom lens, and an enormous 9,000mAh battery. Thankfully, that seems to be everything, as I'm running out of synonyms for "big".

The inclusion of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro chip is nothing surprising, though the name is a bit silly. However, everything else does feel more than a little bit overkill. The LPDDR6 RAM, while an obvious upgrade from the LPDDR5X Ultra RAM in the OnePlus 15, feels like an expensive upgrade to make in a time when AI is hoovering up all the memory and pushing phone prices up.

The bump to a 240Hz refresh rate in the display also feels a little bit over-the-top. When this rumor first came out a few months ago, the OnePlus subreddit was scathing in its criticism, hoping that OnePlus would instead spend the money on something different. To be clear, 240Hz wouldn't be supported by many apps, and the OnePlus 15's existing 165Hz was already above and beyond most of its competition.

The same is true of the supposed 9,000mAh battery. The OnePlus 15's 7,300mAh is one of the largest phone batteries available in the US, and an even larger battery would be almost twice the size of the Galaxy S26 Ultra's 5,000mAh cell.

The 200MP zoom lens, however, does feel a little more reasonable. OnePlus has long lagged behind Samsung and Google where cameras are concerned, though we suspect it needs to do more than just add more megapixels to fix its problems.

But then, OnePlus's problems aren't just limited to its phone cameras.

How long does OnePlus even have left?

Rumors that OnePlus isn't long for this world have been kicking around since about 2023, but recent stories have added to that idea.

First, rumors began that Oppo, OnePlus's parent company, would be pulling it out of the US entirely. Now, there's talk of a merger with fellow Oppo brand, Realme.

Regardless of how this shakes out, it's clear that all is not well in OnePlus, and these rumors add to that. It's hard to see this as anything but a desperate roll of the dice.

However, there's another element to this tale. Digital Chat Station now seems to have edited its post to remove the speculation entirely. Quite what this means we're not sure, but it could be that the rumors are not as stable as they would like them to be.