The dust for Oppo R15 has barely settle, but already, Oppo is pushing out the next R phone, the R17. Not only that, the China handset maker has also sort of announced a new device called F9. Both devices, while differing in design and specifications, have one thing in common: water drop notch. Oppo is coining the display with this notch as “waterdrop screen.” It could be the next trend in smartphone design. As you can see, it is still a notch, but now, it is a lot less Apple iPhone X-like and resemble more of that Essential Phone’s.

Oppo R17 Android Smartphone

The notch appears to be just a ‘bend’ of the black band on top, which leaves the sides with more real estate for notification icons. And then there is, of course, the latest fad: the swanky gradient colorway, made popular by Huawei. Anywho, Oppo R17 is set to hit China market on August 23 and it will be the first device to flaunt Corning Gorilla Glass 6 and a Snapdragon 610 SoC that has 8 Kryo 360 cores, Adreno 615 graphics and X12 LTE modem crammed into it.

Oppo R17 Android Smartphone

Expect key specifications like 8 GB RAM, 128 GB storage, a 6.4-inch FHD+ display that covered almost the entire front, a 16 MP + 5 MP AI main camera setup, a 25 MP AI selfie camera, under display fingerprint sensor, and a 3,500 mAh battery with support for fast charging. And oh, it still has a 3.5 mm audio jack. It will run on Android Oreo, overlaid with ColorOS 5.2. Pre-order is open right now in China for this 3,499 yuan (US$510) handset.

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Oppo R17 Android Smartphone

As for the Oppo F9, it is not a flagship either, but who cares when it look this good, right? As mentioned, it gets the water drop notch treatment too found cutting into the top of its 6.3-inch FHD+ LTPS TFT display (2,340 x 1,080 resolution). It runs on ColorOS 5.2, over Android 8.1 OS and processing is by the way of a 12nm technology MediaTek Helio P60 with 4x ARM Cortex A73 and 4x A53 processors and an ARM Mali-G72 MP3 GPU. It comes with a choice of 4 or 6 GB RAM with storage coming in at 64 GB.

Oppo F9 Android Smartphone

Other details include a 16 MP + 2MP dual camera setup, a 25 MP front-facing camera, a 3.5mm headphone jack, rear fingerprint sensor, and a 3,500 mAh battery with VOOC flash charge that will get your two hours of talk time with just 5-minute charge. Oppo, as it seems, is running an interesting marketing strategy here.

Oppo F9 Android Smartphone

The Oppo F9 is not a handset destined for local market (China). Instead, we heard it is being offered in Vietnam and the Philippines. Odd move, since my impression is, China consumers have an insatiable appetite for mobile phones with some owning as many as three.

Images: Oppo.

Published by Mike

Avid tech enthusiast, gadget lover, marketing critic and most importantly, love to reason and talk.