OnePlus 17 Wide-Screen Rumor: Bigger Buttons for Gamers, Not a Bigger View

On November 10, 2026, a Weibo tipster who goes by Smart Pikachu posted a short note naming the OnePlus 17 as one of next year's high-performance wide-screen phones, and tied the shape to gaming. The post gives no screen size, aspect ratio, chip, camera or launch date. That is the whole of it, and it is the first hint that OnePlus's numbered flagships might leave the tall, narrow shape nearly every phone uses today.

A wide-screen phone, in the sense now spreading through China, is shorter and wider than a normal handset, closer to a TV's proportions than a remote's. Huawei started the trend in September with the Pura X View, a non-folding phone with a 6.39-inch screen, a 7,000mAh battery and a starting price of CNY 5,999, about $899. It reportedly passed 1 million units in roughly 50 days in China, though sales trackers disagree, so that figure deserves caution. Coolpad now sells a wide phone too, and interest from Oppo and Honor has been building since Huawei's launch.

The new leak sits among other tips. In mid-October, Smart Pikachu said OnePlus was testing a 240Hz screen for the OnePlus 17. On October 26, Digital Chat Station claimed China's five biggest phone brands would all launch wide phones in 2027. In late October, the same tipster said an Oppo-developed wide phone could arrive under the OnePlus name rather than as a successor to the OnePlus 15T. All of it remains rumor. The two tipsters, both widely followed with reasonable records on OnePlus and Oppo, don't line up perfectly: one points to a small-phone replacement, the other to the flagship. Both could be true, or they could describe one project under different names.

The baseline is the OnePlus 16, which launched in China on October 12, 2026, at CNY 5,999 (about $899). It has a 6.78-inch flat 1.5K screen running up to 185Hz in supported games, a 9,000mAh battery, 100W charging and a 200MP main camera. OnePlus reportedly tested a 240Hz panel during that phone's development and dropped it, so the October tip suggests the idea has returned.

The gaming claim is where Memeburn's analysis pushes back. Most mobile games are played in landscape, where the screen's short side sets how tall the picture can be. On a tall phone like the OnePlus 16, that side is about 72mm. By Memeburn's calculations, Huawei's wide phone offers about 83mm, roughly 15% taller. A hypothetical 6.5-inch 16:9 screen would be about 13% taller, and a 16:10 screen about 22% taller. Buttons, text and enemies would be physically larger, and thumbs would sit closer together.

But bigger is not the same as seeing more. Games that fix the vertical view trim or add at the sides, so a stretched 20:9-style phone shows more left and right than a wide one; Memeburn puts a 19.6:9 screen at about 36% more elongated than 16:10. Games that fix the horizontal view show more above and below on a wide phone. Games locked to one shape add black bars. So the tipster's pitch of a broader view holds for some titles and runs backward for others. Memeburn's conclusion is that the real benefit would be comfort and size, not extra vision.

There is a plausible business logic. OnePlus is closely tied to Oppo, which shares much of its technology, so a OnePlus version of an Oppo wide phone could target a different buyer: Oppo for style and cameras, OnePlus for speed and gaming. A wider body also leaves more room side to side for big batteries and large cooling plates, which suits a brand already shipping 9,000mAh flagships.

Three signals would firm this up: a certification listing in China's 3C or MIIT databases, which often reveals screen size months ahead; an aspect ratio from either tipster, since 16:9 and 16:10 mean very different phones; and how Oppo's own wide phone fares if it launches first in 2027. Until then, this is a credible rumor with a sound rationale and a gaming pitch about bigger buttons.