OnePlus launches new smartphones in China

Chinese smartphone vendor OnePlus unveiled its OnePlus 5T on Tuesday in China, after it said this newly released product was sold out within five minutes in an online one-hour preview in India earlier this month.

To celebrate its fourth anniversary, the company also launched a new limited color variant "lava red" in China, which maintains all the functions of the black version.

With 8GB RAM and 128 GB of storage, the red smartphone is priced at 3,499 yuan ($529), same as the black one of the same configuration. The price for the black handset with 64GB is a bit lower, retailing at 2,999 yuan.

"Not like other smartphone vendors who often launch new handsets, OnePlus unveiled new products with a comparatively lower speed. We dare to be a 'slow' company in the industry, and I believe that's also why we are making many breakthroughs," said Liu Zuohu, CEO and founder of OnePlus.

With a 6.01-inch optic AMOLED display and an 18:9 aspect ratio, the OnePlus 5T aims to deliver a more immersive viewing experience. The new handset also added the function of face recognition which Apple used in its iPhone X.

In terms of photography, the gadget comes with the same main camera as that of the OnePlus 5 but houses an improved camera for superior low-light photography. Featuring a new "Sunlight Display" mode, it can adapt automatically to harsh light.

The new phone also got a Snapdragon 835, just like its predecessor--a chipset that makes it competitive with other flagships.

For a long time, the Shenzhen-based company has been warmly welcomed by foreign markets. In India, where hundreds of millions of consumers crave affordable high-end mobiles, OnePlus premium smartphone (above $400) sales grew by leaps and bounds through the first two quarters this year, even overtaking Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Apple Inc at some point.