It seems OnePlus is now borrowing the names of its phones from OPPO (Updated)

Update: April 12, 2022 (1:41 AM ET): Tipster Mukul Sharma has found more evidence suggesting that the OnePlus Ace is indeed coming and will launch in India sometime in the future. He spotted the name of the phone on the company’s website.

Meanwhile, leaker Yogesh Brar says that the OnePlus Ace will be a bit different from the OnePlus 10R. The phones will allegedly have the same cameras, display, and SoC. However, the Ace will carry some design tweaks. Brar calls it a “maxed out” version of the 10R.

Original article: April 11, 2022 (2:29 AM ET): It seems OnePlus’ brand identity is set to dilute further with its upcoming phone. We’ve known it as the OnePlus 10R for a while now, thanks to leaked specs and renders. However, new information suggests that OnePlus might borrow the phone’s name from its mothership OPPO.

Weibo tipster Digital Chat Station recently shared the specs of a phone named the “OnePlus Ace.” It’s apparently supposed to get the MediaTek Dimensity 8100 chip, 150W charging, and a 50MP Sony IMX766 camera sensor. All those specs were attributed to the so-called OnePlus 10R in recent leaks.

The “Ace” moniker was also revealed by OnePlus executive Liu Fengshuo who was spotted using the phone to post on Weibo. He has since deleted that post but you can see a machine-translated screenshot of the same below.

The OPPO connection

For those who may be unaware of OnePlus new, borrowed branding, the name “Ace” was used by OPPO for two of its smartphones in 2019 and 2020. The first one was the OPPO Reno Ace with a Snapdragon 855 Plus processor and the second was the Ace 2 sporting the Snapdragon 865. Following those two devices, OPPO didn’t release an Ace series phone in 2021, possibly because it was lending the brand name to OnePlus. It’s also entirely possible that OnePlus will use the new series name only in China. We’ll only know once the company makes things official.

That said, the name of the upcoming OnePlus phone is not the only thing the company may be loaning from one of its stablemates. The device itself is an identical copy of the realme GT Neo 3, both in design and hardware specifications. Real-life images of the phone have also leaked, further confirming previously revealed information.

This isn’t the first time OnePlus phones have shared characteristics with other devices from the BBK stable. However, the OnePlus Ace (or OnePlus 10R) is possibly the first device that’s so blatantly unoriginal. At this point, the company might as well call it the “OPPO Ace 3” or the “realme GT Neo 3 OnePlus Edition.”

Meanwhile, OPPO seems to be getting ready to launch the OnePlus 10 we never had. It’s called the OPPO Reno 8 and reportedly houses specs that a vanilla OnePlus 10 series device should have/could have had. Go figure.