A new flagship phone from OnePlus is just around the corner — and it's keeping the headphone jack

OnePlus 5 Pete Lau

OnePlus has a new device coming.
It will be a flagship smartphone, dubbed the OnePlus 5T, which will refine the OnePlus 5 launched earlier this year.
The smartphone will keep the headphone jack, which many other manufacturers have abandoned.

The OnePlus 5T is real, and it's coming soon.

The company's CEO, Pete Lau, wrote a blog post on Thursday confirming that the rumored (and teased) device does exist, and it will also keep the headphone jack that most other flagship phones have abandoned.

Save for Samsung and LG devices, OnePlus is just about the only phone maker left that hasn't moved to either USB C-based or wireless audio — Apple, Google, HTC, Motorola and others have removed the headphone jack from their 2017 flagships.

"For the time being, we think it's best to stick with the headphone jack," Lau wrote, suggesting that, however, the OnePlus 6 (or whatever it ends up being called) may ultimately ditch the beloved port next year.

But the OnePlus 5T will seemingly focus on refining the OnePlus 5's design, trimming down the bezels and tweaking the spec sheet to make the handset more competitive against the iPhone X, Pixel 2 XL, and Galaxy Note 8, which all launched after the 5T.

Top-half of OnePlus 5T (2.5t? Ha). http://pic.twitter.com/pmfhdQSgWQ
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) October 30, 2017

OnePlus managed to create lots of buzz around its products over the last few years, but is still a relatively small company that relies a lot on word of mouth and direct engagement with its customers — which is why executives routinely take informal surveys to have the users' opinion on the latest tech trends, like the headphone jack's removal.

"First, audio quality. When we surveyed the OnePlus community, 70% of users told us that their priority was sound quality," the blog post reads, with regard to the decision to keep the 3.5mm port. "Second, user freedom. Nearly 80% of our users use in-jack headphones."

There is no official date for the phone's announcement as of yet, but it's likely that the company will launch it before the year's end: "We're proud to announce that we're keeping the headphone jack for the OnePlus 5T – and confident that our product decisions for our upcoming device will offer the best flagship experience possible."

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