The OnePlus 11 is a phone of many firsts. You might have heard this is the flagship phone from OnePlus but without the Pro label, you might not have heard about it being one of the first phones to offer ray-tracing in games, and being the first Snapdragon Spaces-certified device, meaning it's ready to pair with Snapdragon AR2 glasses for a wireless XR experience.
But not content to let the vanilla phone steal all the glory, OnePlus has unveiled a concept version of the OnePlus 11. Called the OnePlus 11 Concept, it started life as the OnePlus 11, but has evolved to become something more.
The specs of this phone are something of a moot point: it's not going on sale, rather it's an exploration of design. OnePlus did similar with the OnePlus Concept One, so there's history here, but OnePlus are saying that the Active CryoFlux cooling system is going to be used in a future product.
Let's just qualify that: the technology is going to be used, but it isn't going to look like this. OnePlus is keen to include active liquid cooling, but is unlikely to make it visible on the rear of the phone as seen in this concept.
Turning to the Active CryoFlux cooling. This system has miniaturised the sort of cooling system that you find in a gaming PC, with a pipeline sandwiched between upper and lower diaphragms and visible thanks to the transparent back.
There is a ceramic piezoelectric micropump to circulate the liquid, with OnePlus using a mixture of oil, water and microelements to make it look cool. And it does look cool: at first glance you might think you're looking at some sort of display tech on the rear of the phone (like you'll find on the Nothing phone (1)), but this is actually the circulating liquid that you can see.
It's designed for cooling, with OnePlus saying that it will lower the temperature of the phone by 2.1 degrees centigrade during gaming, or 1.6 degrees during charging. This will allow more stable frame rates, and reducing the charging by about 40 seconds. You might ask whether such minimal gains are worth it and that's a question worth asking, but it looks great as a concept device.
That's not the only detail that's embellished on this phone: the camera surround also gets a Guilloché etched design, the sort of thing you might see on a high-end timepiece, with a halo ring encircling the calendar and again filled with that cool blue fluid.
The OnePlus 11 Concept won't be going on sale, it's just to show off the cooling tech at Mobile World Congress, so you might have to hold your horses if you want this liquid cooling tech in a real device.
If you're after the standard OnePlus 11, it's on sale now.