TL;DR
- OnePlus has already advertised the OnePlus 13 as IP68/IP69 ingress protection.
- For some past OnePlus hardware, IP ratings have varied across markets.
- With the OnePlus 13, though, the company confirms to us that all models will offer the same IP rating.
OnePlus fans must be slowly losing their minds right now, living with the knowledge that the OnePlus 13 made its debut in China months ago. Global audiences have been stuck waiting for the company’s upcoming winter launch event, set to finally take place next Tuesday, January 7. But before we get all those details on international release plans for the OnePlus 13, we’re already filling in one very important blank, as we confirm a critical detail about this flagship’s construction.
Let’s not mince any words about it: The approach OnePlus takes to smartphone sales has, at times over the years, been a bit odd. From its early days with an invitation-based sales system, the company’s been comfortable doing things a little differently from its peers. One trend that’s emerged has involved protection against water damage, and across multiple OnePlus handsets, we’ve seen the manufacturer express a fair amount of resistance towards the IP standards that other phones embrace.
While plenty of older OnePlus phones have been quite water resistant, the company hasn’t always bothered to put them through formal IP certification. What makes things really confusing, though, has been the way that some of these phones were sold unlocked with no IP rating, but also sold in different markets through carriers where they did arrive with an IP certification.
With the OnePlus 13, though, it’s been looking like the company might finally be going all-in on water resistance, advertising the handset as offering IP68/IP69 protection. But would this be the case everywhere-everywhere, or will we be once again looking at splits between markets based on how the phone’s sold?
We reached out to OnePlus to get to the bottom of this, and the company has now confirmed with Android Authority that all models of the OnePlus 13 you buy will feature that IP68/IP69 rating.
Like we said, formal rating or not, these phones have demonstrated their ability to survive water exposure time and time again — it’s not like OnePlus doesn’t know what it’s building here. But formal ratings still provide a level of peace of mind that’s really going to be important to shoppers dropping hundreds of dollars on this new hardware, so we’re still quite happy to be able to get an official answer to share with you.
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