OnePlus 11 Concept Phone Unveiled With Active CryFlux Cooling To Tackle Gaming Temps
Mobile World Congress kicks off today and runs through Thursday, which means we can expect a barrage of smartphone reveals and related technologies throughout the week. One of the, *ahem* cooler announcements is the OnePlus 11 Concept with a supposedly game-changing Active CryoFlux liquid cooling scheme to lower temps for various benefits.
The folks at OnePlus have been teasing the OnePlus 11 Concept leading up to this year's MWC event, and have now officially unveiled the aptly named concept with an actual demo handset, though it doesn't actually work. More on that in a moment, but first let's talk about the technology at play.
OnePlus claims it created its Active CryoFlux system by "miniaturizing the cooling capability of gaming PCs" to fit inside a smartphone design. It consists of an industrial-grade piezoelectric ceramic micropump attached to a series of pipelines sandwiched between an upper and lower diaphragm.
The tiny pump only takes up 0.2 squared centimeters, so there's room for the liquid to circulate around piping without having to create a significantly thicker and/or heavier smartphone. It also gets around the need to attach an active cooler for lower temps, like the AeroActive Cooler accessory that ships with the ASUS ROG Phone series. So what's the net benefit?
According to OnePlus, its internal laboratory testing shows the Active CryoFlux cooling scheme dropping a smartphone's temps by up to 2.1C while playing games, which in turn improves framerates by up to 3-4 frames per second. OnePlus also says it saw charging temps drop by 1.6C, resulting in slightly shorter charging times (by 30 to 45 seconds).
We wouldn't call those metrics game changing, but they are at least improvements and the phone looks cool to boot.
"OnePlus 11 Concept also features a beautiful and futuristic design, complete with a deeply curved
clear rear cover featuring a side pull up height of 5.04mm. The clear back delivers a mesmerizing
view of the Active CryoFlux pipelines at work. The rear cover also features a magnetron-spluttering
coating where metal and alloy are deposited in tiny amounts onto the case using an electric field," OnePlus explains.
Liquid cooling also flows around the camera bump for added visual flair. The question is, does the liquid cooling setup live up to the hype? Not yet, and perhaps not ever, depending on if the OnePlus 11 Concept ever graduates into a shipping product.
Source: Marques Brownlee (MKBHD)
YouTuber Marques Brownlee posted a hands-on video of the OnePlus 11 Concept, and it looks even better in prototype form (or concept form, really) than it does in renders. It's absolutely stunning. However, "it doesn't work, like at all," Brownlee states in his video. You can actually see liquid flowing through the back of the phone, but it's essentially a visual concept rather than a working cooling system, according to Brownlee.
He's sour on the idea of non-working concepts and he has a point. At the same time, it's neat to see these types of designs, real or imagined. They at least show that companies are thinking of new and innovative ways to improve devices and gadgets that we use on a daily basis—smartphones, in this specific instance. Yes, it's easy publicity for a company, but if there's enough interest in a particular project, these types of products sometimes become a reality. You just need to look as far as Maingear's Project Stealth PC that gained traction when Gigabyte picked up on it.
That said, this particular concept might be tricky to pull off, depending on the costs and engineering involved. It would be a hard sell to consumers if a finalized product only delivered a few extra frames but came at a big markup, even one that looks as cool as this. We'll see (maybe).
