[Update: Partnership Concluded] OnePlus removed from McLaren’s partners page, hinting there won’t be another McLaren Edition

Update 1 (05/29/2020 @ 09:40 AM ET): McLaren has clarified that the partnership with OnePlus has been concluded as per schedule. Scroll to the bottom for more information. The article as published on May 20, 2020, is preserved below.

OnePlus has been doing special editions of its phones for a few years now. The OnePlus 5T was available in the Star Wars: The Last Jedi Edition and the OnePlus 6 was available in a Marvel Avengers Edition. Both of these phones were available in limited quantities and in select regions only. The company expanded the scope of these special editions with the launch of the OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition. This variant not only came with a new and distinct CMF (color-material-finish), but it also bumped up the RAM to 10GB and the charging technology to Warp Charge 30. The McLaren Edition made a return with the OnePlus 7T Pro, once again bumping up the RAM and opting for the signature CMF. However, this run appears to have come to an end, as recent developments indicate that there may not be another McLaren edition in the works.

A keen-eyed Redditor noticed that OnePlus was no longer listed as a Formula 1 partner for McLaren for the 2020 F1 season. We checked through Wayback machine (internet archive) and can spot that OnePlus continued to remain listed until March 29, 2020, at least. So, it is safe to presume that the company was delisted as a partner within the last month or so.

What does this mean? This means that there is unlikely to be another McLaren Edition phone coming from OnePlus. The next McLaren iteration was expected to be on the presumed OnePlus 8T, but we can rule this out from happening based on how things stand right now.

That’s not to say that there won’t be a special edition for the OnePlus 8T series, at all. OnePlus could always collaborate with a new partner and market a different CMF with different features as a special edition. Some have taken this news to also mean that there won’t be a “T” version at all this year — we do not have any evidence of this statement being true or false, either way.

We’ve reached out to OnePlus for comment on this delisting. We’ll update our article when we get more information.

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Update: McLaren confirms that its partnership with OnePlus has concluded

While OnePlus has not responded with any comment, McLaren has responded to AndroidAuthority with a statement:

Our partnership with OnePlus, which came to its scheduled conclusion recently, has been a highly successful collaboration between two iconic and innovative brands. Since the start of this partnership in 2018, OnePlus has been a supportive, valued partner and we wish them well and hope to see them in the future.

This means that OnePlus and McLaren had a fixed duration contract for the collaboration, and that contract has been honored and completed. This means that we are unlikely to see another McLaren smartphone in H2 2020, unless the companies renew their partnership. Keep in mind that OnePlus could collaborate with another partner too, for the presumed T-release of 2020.

The post [Update: Partnership Concluded] OnePlus removed from McLaren’s partners page, hinting there won’t be another McLaren Edition appeared first on xda-developers.

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