For years, top smartphone brands have teamed up with famous camera companies. We’ve seen these partnerships before, and they often lead to great results. Now, one of these big collaborations is ending. OnePlus will no longer use Hasselblad’s cameras in its phones. This marks a new direction for the tech company’s approach to photography.
OnePlus Goes Solo on Camera Tech
OnePlus announced this split on its Community Forum. The partnership with Hasselblad began in 2021 with the OnePlus 9 series. Pete Lau, the CEO and co-founder, shared how much Hasselblad helped them over the years. They really focused on getting colors just right. This led to something called “Natural Color Calibration with Hasselblad.” Engineers even had long talks about the perfect shade of blue. You could see Hasselblad’s name on the phone’s camera bump. Even the camera app had a distinct orange shutter button.
But now, OnePlus is forging its own path. They are building their own internal camera system, which they call the “OnePlus DetailMax Engine.” The company has already shared some details about it. It’s made to capture the clearest, most true-to-life pictures on a smartphone. This engine uses smart computing to show scenes exactly as they are. It avoids extra fancy stuff or weird distortions. OnePlus believes when you zoom into a photo, you’ll see why they’re so confident in this new system.
A New Vision for Photos
Pete Lau promises this new engine uses “advanced algorithms.” It will grab more data for photos with “unparalleled depth and realism.” He also made a point to say it will avoid “artificial improvements.” This includes showing a “fake moon.” That “fake moon” comment sounds like a quiet jab at a competitor.
In 2023, Samsung faced criticism for using AI to add details to moon photos. The camera lens didn’t actually capture these details. One user proved this by taking a blurry, zoomed-out picture of the moon on a computer screen. The phone then showed a perfectly detailed moon image, even though the source was not.
The DetailMax Engine is still an early version. We expect to see it in the company’s next top phone. That would be the OnePlus 14, though they might jump straight to the OnePlus 15. This happened before with the OnePlus 4 in 2017. The number four sounds very similar to the word for “death” in China and other East Asian cultures. This makes it an unlucky number.
You can read the original announcement from OnePlus on their community forum: OnePlus Community Post