For those unaware, OnePlus has been unveiling two smartphone lineups each year for quite some time now. One is the standard number series, which arrives around March, and the other is a T-series upgrade around September or October. As per reputed tipster Max J on Twitter, OnePlus 8T Pro, which would be codenamed Kebab2, is not going to launch alongside the vanilla OnePlus 8T this year. This means OnePlus might not be ready to break the long-running T-series cycle, thus, it is simply refreshing the standard variant this year.
— Max Jambor (@MaxJmb) September 7, 2020 If you are not familiar with the codenames, OnePlus 8T is said to have ‘kebab’ as the codename. This means OnePlus 8T Pro would have ‘kebabb’ as the codename since it’s known that OnePlus usually adds a ‘b’ to the end of the standard variant’s codename to denote the Pro variant. Max has, however, used ‘kebab2′ as the codename to simplify things and confirm that OnePlus 8T Pro is not coming this year. I believe this is a perfectly sane decision on OnePlus’ part as the OnePlus 8 Pro, which debuted in May earlier this year, is already one of the best flagship phones of 2020. If OnePlus 8T Pro arrives in a month or so, it will only include the Snapdragon 865+ SoC and a higher megapixel primary camera. That’s not worth the $50 or $100 price jump that we see with the T-series. OnePlus 8 Pro is still a viable flagship option in the oh-so-flooded sub-$1000 price segment.
As for the standard OnePlus 8T, it is coming and a render for the front (as you can see above) of the device was recently spotted in the OxygenOS source code. We have also learned the specs, including a 120Hz AMOLED panel, Snapdragon 865+ chipset, and quad rear-cameras as opposed to the triple-camera setup aboard its predecessor. The OnePlus 8T is said to arrive late-September or early-October, which is merely a month away now.