OnePlus has announced that it has ended its partnership with Hasselblad, which kicked off in 2021 with the release of the OnePlus 9 series.
In a post made to the OnePlus Community Forum, CEO and Co-Founder Pete Lau noted the achievements with Hasselblad over the years. For example, the collab focused heavily on color science, which led to the creation of "Natural Color Calibration with Hasselblad," where engineers "debated endlessly over the right shade of blue," as Lau puts it.
This partnership also extended to branding, with the Hasselblad logo on the camera modules and touches in the camera app, like an orange shutter button.
OnePlus is now working on a new in-house imaging engine called OnePlus DetailMax Engine, described as follows:
Designed from the ground up to deliver the clearest and most real photos on a smartphone, it harnesses the full potential of computational imaging to present scenes as they truly are, without over-beautification or distortion. The moment you zoom in on a photo, you’ll understand why I’m confident you’ll love the results.
Lau promises that the new engine, using "advanced algorithms," will capture more data for images with "unmatched depth and realism." He also made a point to say it will avoid "artificial enhancements," like showing a "fake" moon.
That "fake moon" comment is very likely a subtle shade at Samsung, which got caught back in 2023 for using AI to superimpose details onto moon photos that the camera lens never actually captured. A user proved this by taking a picture of a blurry, downsized moon photo on a monitor, only for the phone to spit out a perfectly detailed shot.
The engine is still in early prototype, but you should expect it in the company"s next flagship, the OnePlus 14, though the company may skip that name and go with 15. It did exactly that with the OnePlus 4