OnePlus will launch the OnePlus 16 in China, and the company has confirmed that the phone’s main camera uses a 200MP sensor. That’s a big jump in resolution for OnePlus’s flagship and a sign that camera hardware is once again the main battleground for high-end phones.

Much of OnePlus’s official pre-launch messaging has focused on gaming, with a 165Hz display that can run selected games at 185fps and a three-chip system for networking, touch and display. But for photographers, the 200MP main camera is the headline.

What we know about the cameras

Beyond the confirmed 200MP main camera, reports ahead of launch point to a 50MP periscope telephoto with 3x optical zoom and 6x lossless zoom, a 50MP ultra-wide and a 50MP autofocus selfie camera, according to 91mobiles. OnePlus hasn’t confirmed those yet, so treat them as provisional until the launch.

A high-resolution main sensor gives a phone more room to crop for 2x and other in-sensor zoom levels, and to combine pixels for cleaner low-light shots. The real test is how well the processing handles all that data, and that’s something we’ll only know once we’ve used one.

Other rumoured specifications include Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, a 9,000mAh battery, 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging. Again, these are unconfirmed.

The OnePlus 16 joins a busy few weeks for camera-focused phones, with Honor’s Magic9 Pro Max, Huawei’s Mate 90 series and Oppo’s Find X10 all arriving this autumn.

OnePlus 16 specifications (confirmed and reported)

OnePlus 16 price and availability

The OnePlus 16 launches in China Prices and a UK release date haven’t been announced, and we’ll update this story after the launch.