OnePlus 16 Camera Rumours: A Mixed Bag for UK Users

The OnePlus 16 is taking a different course, and I hope it’s for the better. The latest camera spec rumours are starting to pick up pace, but I remain to be convinced that they mean progress. According to Yogesh Brar, the OnePlus 16 will resist peer pressure and adopt another 50Mp main camera.

The current trend among OnePlus’s China-based contemporaries is for a pixel-packed main camera. The late 2026 / early 2027 flagship offerings of Xiaomi, Vivo, iQoo, and, indeed, parent company Oppo are all said to be going with a 200Mp main camera. However, having more pixels doesn’t necessarily make a camera better.

The Xiaomi 17 Ultra has a 50Mp main camera, and it’s arguably the best in the business, thanks largely to its huge 1-inch sensor. All major flagships are testing 200MP primary cameras, including the OPPO Find X10 series, Xiaomi 18 series, Vivo X500 / X500 Pro, and iQOO 16.

OnePlus 16 will get a 50MP primary camera, according to Yogesh Brar. However, after a slightly shaky generation with the OnePlus 15, you can count me a little concerned about these latest OnePlus 16 rumours. The OnePlus 15 is a fine phone with blazing performance and particularly outstanding battery life, but I couldn’t help but find it a little disappointing.

We’ve grown accustomed to smartphones getting better and better from one generation to the next, but in certain key respects, the OnePlus 15 simply wasn’t. Not everyone on the team would agree, but I’d argue that both its design and display represented a step back from the OnePlus 13. Most importantly, so was its camera set-up.

The brand ditched its Hasselblad partnership and decreased the size of its image sensors across the board. As such, this latest OnePlus 16 rumour doesn’t really give us the vital information. How big is it? And if Hasselblad has once again been left out of the tuning process, what’s the special sauce that’s going to lift this phone’s main camera above its ancestor?

One camera department that was technically improved in the OnePlus 15 was its telephoto camera, with a move up from a 3x to a 3.5x optical zoom length. According to tipster Smart Pikachu, OnePlus is rolling things back in this respect – but it’s not necessarily all bad news.

The OnePlus 16’s telephoto camera will revert to 3x, but it will leap from 50Mp to 200Mp. Again, I’m not particularly fussed about the number of pixels here, but the move to 200Mp at least signifies a change in sensor. The OnePlus 15’s telephoto camera also rolled back on sensor size compared to the OnePlus 13, but the 200Mp telephoto cameras we’ve seen so far have been reassuringly chunky.

All in all, we’re none the wiser as to whether the OnePlus 16 camera is going to fix the biggest shortfall of its predecessor. With the OnePlus brand’s future seemingly hanging in the balance, I sincerely hope so. The UK market is eagerly waiting for the new OnePlus 16, and it’s crucial that the brand gets it right this time.