OnePlus 13 is the latest Android flagship to ignore Qi2

Ben Schoon | Dec 4 2024 - 7:25 am PT

The OnePlus 13 is geared up for a global release in the near future and, ahead of its debut, the device has been officially confirmed to lack Qi2 charging, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to use MagSafe accessories.

OnePlus 13 is expected to bring a handful of new hardware changes, including a revamped design with a flat display, the Snapdragon 8 Elite under the hood, and some new colors too. It’s shaping up to be a rather exciting release, but one thing that this device won’t be is the first major Qi2 launch.

While the timing of the OnePlus 13’s release offered a high chance that it’d be one of the first major smartphone releases with Qi2, this isn’t the case. A listing at the WPC confirms that the OnePlus 13’s global variant will use the Qi 1.3.3 spec rather than Qi2. This means the device won’t have built-in magnets for charging alignment and accessories, even though those aren’t strictly required by the Qi 2.0.0 standard.

So far, the only Android smartphone with Qi2 is the HMD Skyline, while all other smartphones with the updated standard are iPhones.

However, this doesn’t mean the OnePlus 13 won’t get any MagSafe-like accessories.

Alongside its launch in China, OnePlus launched a collection of magnetic accessories for the OnePlus 13 that are enabled by first-party cases that have magnetic rings included. The phone itself won’t have anything, but the cases will. Oppo is offering a similar suite of “Mag” accessories, and has confirmed they’ll be available with the device globally, as well as mentioning the cases will work with other MagSafe and Qi2 accessories as well.

While nothing has been explicitly confirmed just yet about the OnePlus 13 and these MagSafe-style cases, it seems all but guaranteed we’ll see them in the global launch.

OnePlus will launch its newest flagship in January 2025.