OnePlus' Gaming Concept Phone Has Glowing Liquid Cooling

At Mobile World Congress (MWC) this week in Barcelona, OnePlus showcased a concept smartphone with liquid cooling technology, dubbed "Active CryoFlux." While the headset may never see the light of day, at least in its current form, it serves to show how serious OnePlus hopes to get about mobile gaming. From a report: A 0.2 square centimeter piezoelectric ceramic micropump moves the coolant up and down a pipeline near the rear of the device and around the massive camera array. The rear of the device is covered in a transparent material, showcasing the process as a kind of light show. It's a cool effect, and one that invariably shares comparisons to Phone (1), released by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei's Nothing last year. "A lot of young people like playing games," said OnePlus President and COO Kinder Liu. "Gaming plays an important role in their digital life, and in the future, we will continuously improve their gaming experience. Currently, we definitely engage with our users about gaming development. We are talking about how to improve the gaming experience, and in the future, we believe we will have more time to talk to them."

WOW

[Anonymous Coward]

Just when you think we've run out of stupid, pointless gimmicks ....

Battery?

[Joce640k]

How long will the battery last on a CPU that needs liquid cooling?

Re:

[TwistedGreen]

For that matter, where's the heat sink?

Re:

[war4peace]

There isn't one.
It's just the good old set of heat pipes with some lights and stuff, I guess.

Re:

[Pieroxy]

On smartphones, as in fanless laptops, the heatsink is the outer casing.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

For that matter, where's the heat sink?

It's there holding the device. It's you.

It could sink the heat into a heatsink like the back, which it probably does, but it probably also takes advantage of the fact that a water-filled bag is likely to be touching it which is a relatively huge thermal mass.

Instead of relying on passively sinking the heat to the backplate, the watercooling lets you transfer the heat more efficiently using the entire back of the phone.

Re:

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

This is a concept phone, Not a functioning device for sale. Right now it just looks like something that might use liquid cooling might look like. It doesn't actually use the liquid being pumped around inside to cool anything at all. One Plus also released some numbers on what a future phone *Might* be able to do in a perfect scenario: You might get up to one degree cooler device , yes that's one the number after zero, degree of Celsius cooler phone, and you might be able to get 2-4 FPS boost during games.

Re:

[RockDoctor]

I'd give that temp differential as 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit just for the bigger number,

What#s wrong with calling it 1000 milliKelvin? It's not as if your potential audience are going to be capable of mental maths.

Let's not mention degrees Rankine [wikipedia.org]. It'll confuse the Americans by looking like Fahrenheit, but not actually being Fahrenheit.

Re:

[Darinbob]

Hold it to your ear and let your head cool it? Oh wait I forgot that smart phones aren't used as phones anymore.

Re:

[hackertourist]

What's not shown in the photos is the large suitcase that contains the batteries and the radiator.

Re: Battery?

[SleepingEye]

There's a new tech that the article mentions that effectively uses vibrations to act as a fan / pump. It's incredibly efficient as it's basically a speaker at low volume

Re:

[omnichad]

Let's keep NVIDIA away from Lithium batteries, shall we? They can't even handle power cables without melting them.

My god is that tacky

[bjoast]

I was actually expecting something that looked cool.

Finally a good use for AI

[RKThoadan]

I'm not generally a big proponent of the various "AI" stuff going on, but after reading that statement I think it might be able to replace most CEOs (sorry, COOs) quite effectively.

Please let the coolant be human blood.

[jai1]

It's not? Darn. Maybe next CES. :(

Phone gaming is a lot like Mac gaming

[DarkRookie2]

Sure you can do it. A little bit. I am even sure there is even one or two good games on the platform.
Then again, PC isn't looking too much better. The big devs and pubs are already eyeing the streaming everything from their own bespoke spyware. There is too many idiots in the world.

I think it looks cool...

[Voyager529]

...but it's going to be a rough sell.

En masse, mobile games are essentially casinos now. The handful of exceptions typically don't justify getting a phone with the sort of high end specs that would require specialized cooling as a functional improvement. Moreover, Asus hasn't really been able to make inroads with their ROG series of phones, and Razer, despite their efforts, doesn't currently list a first party phone on their website.

If you're playing a casino game, it makes more sense to get a midrange phone and spend money on the game.
If you're playing a graphics-intensive game, cooling is a secondary concern to battery life.
If you're doing neither of these things, the cool looking status of the liquid is mitigated by the need for a case, lest the first minor drop ruin the thing entirely.

Does it look cool? Yes. Do I want one even though I don't mobile game? Kinda. Am I paying what is likely a four figure sum for it? Absolutely not.

But ultimately, OnePlus might be able to justify the phone if they financed the creation of mobile games that were...actual games. A handful of $5-$20, one time purchase games, that all come free with this particular phone, might be the best way to pitch it.

Re:

[thegarbz]

You're applying a level of thought to the entire thing that isn't remotely representative of the mobile gaming community.

Re:

[HashtagTrashGaming]

You should check out the Indian gaming scene...most of those kids play on cellphones. PUBG Mobile and Warzone Mobile are HUGE outside the US.

Oppo's OnePlus

[p51d007]

Ran out of ideas, around the 5T phone, one of the best. When all "anti flagship killer" and the price just is not worth it. Plus, their OS now is terrible. Give it up Oppo, kill off OnePlus

Rather than this...

[rnturn]

... I wish they'd assign more developers and testers to correct the bugs in their Android releases.