The OnePlus 13 Will Finally Be Truly Water-Resistant

What’s OnePlus been up to lately? The lesser-known Android brand has put out impressive hits these past few years, from flagships to foldables and even an update to its remarkable tablet. The company’s next big to-do will be the OnePlus 13, which will launch in the U.S. and Canada in January 2025.

The 13th-generation flagship, launching in OnePlus’s 11th year of business, will come in three colors: Midnight Ocean (blue), Black Eclipse (black), and Arctic Dawn (white). The blue variant of the OnePlus 13 will be the brand’s foray into micro-fiber vegan leather design. Android brands like Motorola have already attempted this fad. (At least LG opted for genuine leather with the G4, RIP🪦.)

More importantly, unlike its predecessors, the OnePlus 13 will actually be water resistant. It is the first OnePlus device to secure an IP68 + IP69 rating, meaning it’s jacuzzi-resistant and can withstand higher water temperatures and pressurized water. The OnePlus 12, launched at the beginning of 2024, was set at IP65. A teardown had reported that it could withstand more than that initial rating, which gave nerds the justification they needed to get pedantic about the OnePlus 12’s water resistance. But this time, it’s the real deal.

The OnePlus 13 is already available in China, but whether the specifications will match the phones sold in the U.S. and Canada is unclear. OnePlus launched its flagship in China in October. It’s one of the first Android handhelds worldwide to feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite processor. It has 1TB of storage and runs OxygenOS 15, based on Android 15. The maximum memory offerings have also been increased from 16GB RAM to 24GB RAM, which overseas OEMs have been toying with to bump up AI’s usefulness on the phone.

OnePlus did not clarify the day it plans to launch the OnePlus 13. It has only teased that it will be available globally next month. There’s also the question of whether it will follow up with a OnePlus 13R in other markets, like how the OnePlus 12R launched this year. The “R” variant is a truncated version of the marquee flagship at a more attractive price.

If the OnePlus 13 is truly going to launch with an absurd amount of memory—likely to help facilitate Qualcomm’s AI promises—then I’d hope there was an offering for users who don’t want to shell out that much cash. Also, more RAM hasn’t exactly endeared OnePlus to North American audiences, at least according to its market share, even if it is one of the things enthusiasts have appreciated about the brand all this time.