OnePlus unveils liquid-cooled concept phone

3 years ago 1

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OnePlus has unveiled a concept phone with a liquid cooling system similar to one you would find on an enthusiast gaming PC.

A handful of smartphones have slapped-on “liquid cooling” systems, including some from OnePlus itself, but these use evaporation and capillary action to move fluid around. They cannot cool components like a PC liquid cooling system.

However, the modified OnePlus 11’s “Active CryoFlux” system uses a piezoelectric ceramic micropump to transport cooling liquid through pipelines in the phone.

The pump takes up around 0.2cm³ of space, equal to the volume of 0.2 millilitres, which means it does not add much weight or thickness to the smartphone’s design.

A part of the system can be seen through the back of the phone.

It features a series of backlit curving pipes through which the coolant flows, including around the camera ring.

OnePlus said the cooling configuration boosted game performance by up to three to four frames per second and reduced charging times by 30 to 45 seconds.

Linus Tech Tips recently had some hands-on experience with the smartphone for a sponsored video.

They found that turning the cooling system on lowered the CPU, GPU, and battery temperatures by around 2-3°C. Performance was similar when compared to the retail OnePlus 11 5G.

Smartphone SoCs are designed to throttle at significantly lower temperatures than desktop processors.

Therefore, smaller temperature differences could provide significantly improved performance than the same temperature drop on a PC.