OnePlus ditches Hasselblad in favor of its own DetailMax Engine camera system

OnePlus has confirmed the end of its long-running partnership with medium format giant Hasselblad, as the smartphone maker looks to take complete control of its imaging future with a brand-new in-house system.

Announced by CEO Pete Lau on the OnePlus Forum, the company’s next flagship will debut the OnePlus DetailMax Engine – a proprietary computational photography platform designed to push smartphone image clarity and realism to new levels.

The announcement brings to a close five years of close collaboration with Hasselblad, which began with the OnePlus 9 series and has pushed OnePlus flagships to be some of the best camera phones around. Hasselblad brought its storied color science and decades of photographic expertise to OnePlus devices, giving the phones a strong claim to some of the most natural and balanced tones in the business.

But Lau says the time has come to take the next step. “This is not the end. It’s the beginning of our next adventure,” he wrote, describing Hasselblad’s influence as “woven into every future OnePlus camera.”

The DetailMax Engine is said to focus on one of the most important aspects of smartphone imaging: what happens when you zoom in. Based on extensive user feedback, Lau explained that OnePlus wants to ensure every photo holds up to closer inspection, with a leap forward in computational imaging to capture more detail and depth without artificial over-processing.

Lau insists the DetailMax Engine is about authenticity: “Designed from the ground up to deliver the clearest and most real photos on a smartphone… the moment you zoom in on a photo, you’ll understand why I’m confident you’ll love the results.” While still early in development, Lau revealed he is personally testing prototype hardware, with promising results already on show.

While OnePlus might be going solo, parent company Oppo has just signed a new deal with Hasselblad to extend its partnership – but OnePlus is now looking to prove it can stand on its own.

Whether the DetailMax Engine can genuinely set a new benchmark for smartphone imaging remains to be seen. The company’s next flagship, expected by the end of the year, will be the first test of whether OnePlus can truly deliver “the clearest and most real photos” without the weight of Hasselblad behind it.