The OnePlus 13 is coming on January 7 — along with a surprise

It’s official: the OnePlus 13 will launch on January 7, 2025. Preempting the anticipated event by several weeks, OnePlus has officially confirmed the date we’ll see its next major smartphone release outside of China. Additionally, it has revealed some key features and news of a surprise new launch to go along with the phone.

OnePlus will release the OnePlus 13 in three different colors — Black Eclipse, Arctic Dawn, and Midnight Ocean. It’s the latter that is likely to be the model to have, as it is wrapped in a material called micro-fiber vegan leather, which is apparently corrosion and scratch-resistant but still luxurious to the touch. For the Arctic Dawn phone, the glass will have a special coating to give it a silky-smooth finish. It’s likely these are the same colors offered in China, where the phone has already been announced, just with different names.

Staying on the durability front, the OnePlus 13 will have both an IP68 and an IP69 dust and water resistance rating. If you’re wondering why you need both, the answer is you probably don’t, but the IP69 rating does protect against high-power jets of water and water at higher temperatures, so hot drinks won’t be a problem, and you can happily use the phone in the shower, too. As expected, the OnePlus 13 will use the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor and have OxygenOS 15 over Android 15 installed.

The final teased specification relates to the screen, which OnePlus states will have a variable refresh rate between 1Hz and 120Hz, a 2K resolution, and a peak brightness of 4,500 nits. What about the other surprise? Also, during the launch event, a new set of OnePlus Buds Pro 3 earbuds will launch, this time in a Sapphire Blue color to match the Midnight Ocean OnePlus 13. January 7 isn’t just the launch date either, as in the U.K., OnePlus will sell the OnePlus 13 on the day at a pop-up store in London’s Covent Garden, where the first 20 people in line for the phone will get a special OnePlus backpack filled with gifts too.

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One thing OnePlus doesn’t specifically mention is the OnePlus 13R, a device expected to join the OnePlus 13 at launch. However, don’t despair if this is the model you are looking forward to, as in the press release, the company says, “The first phone to be revealed from the OnePlus 13 Series is OnePlus 13,” indicating it still has more to share. It wouldn’t be a OnePlus launch without a consistent drip feed of information leading up to the big day, now would it?