OnePlus 16 camera teaser confirms 200MP main sensor, upgraded telephoto, and more

OnePlus has finally confirmed the camera specs of the much-anticipated OnePlus 16 on Weibo with an official teaser that lays out the rear and front camera hardware ahead of the phone's full unveiling.

The OnePlus 16 switches to a 200MP main camera with a 1/1.4-inch sensor, likely a Samsung ISOCELL HPE unit, and an f/1.6 aperture—a clear step up from the OnePlus 15's 50MP Sony IMX906 with a 1/1.56-inch sensor and an f/1.8 aperture. The periscope telephoto moves back to a 50MP Sony IMX882 sensor with 3x optical zoom, the same module found on the OnePlus 13, compared with the much smaller 1/2.76-inch 50MP Samsung ISOCELL JN5 with 3.5x optical zoom on the OnePlus 15. That downgrade, paired with the loss of Hasselblad tuning, was the main criticism of the OnePlus 15 at launch. The ultrawide stays at 50MP with a 116-degree field of view; the sensor name isn't confirmed, but it should be the same OmniVision OV50D unit found on the OnePlus 15. The front camera gets a bump to 50MP with autofocus support, up from the OnePlus 15's fixed-focus 32MP IMX709. The camera system is paired with what OnePlus calls its second-generation LUMO imaging system, the name of OPPO's image-processing pipeline.

This camera upgrade, paired with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 and the large 9,000mAh battery the device is rumored to carry, would make the OnePlus 16 a much better all-rounder. The phone comes in three colorways: "Tomorrow's Starlight," "Dark Forest," and "Mars Masterpiece."

OnePlus has not confirmed a launch date, but we can expect the phone to launch in September 2026. Neither pricing nor availability has been confirmed, but there have been rumors that the phone will be exclusive to China. As with any prelaunch teaser, the final specifications of retail units could still change before the phone is officially unveiled.