OPPO has been at the forefront of some pathbreaking technology for smartphones, like ultra-fast SuperVOOC charging and "5X Dual-Camera Zoom", and OnePlus has been making its own strides in the industry with its "flagship killers", but it looks like both OEMs might take an important design cue from the iPhone X's most important feature - its bezel-less display.
Hands-on images of the new OPPO R15 have been leaked on Weibo that show a truly bezel-less display with an uncanny resemblance to the lauded Apple iPhone X.
Given OnePlus' history of taking major design cues from OPPO's flagships (compare OnePlus 5 with OPPO R11 and OnePlus 5T with OPPO R11s), it could also mean that OnePlus 6 will take after OPPO R15, ending up copying the iPhone X's bezel-less design.
Can OnePlus 6 or OPPO R15 become a poor man's iPhone X? It's hard to tell, but the front design of the leaked R15 looks pretty much like the iPhone X, down to the very detailing of the notch. It's hard to see what the notch packs, but one may find the front camera, earpiece and a proximity sensor there. Anything more than that, like a 3D sensor for facial recognition, is welcome.
It's hard to tell whether OPPO is going with an OLED display for its R15, which would be the ideal choice considering it faired really well for Apple. It also makes sense to use OLED because the bezel-less display on the phone will naturally be the highlight and OLED displays render brighter and more vibrant colors than LCD. There's no room for doubt here, as OPPO has already used AMOLED displays for its previous flagships.
As for OPPO R15's leaked renders, the tipster on Weibo shared multiple images to give a total front and rear look at the handset. Besides the bright color choices for OPPO R15 (pink, purple and black), the rear design looks nothing like the iPhone X.
In fact, the horizontally-placed dual camera at the back with the company's branding at the center makes it look more like OPPO R11, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
There's also an oval-shaped fingerprint sensor at the back, just like the one we saw in OPPO F5 (REVIEW). But this confirms that OPPO won't be going with an under-display fingerprint scanner.
Other observations from the leaked renders are that the power/lock button is placed on the right and the volume controls are found on the left. A 3.5mm headphone jack is visible at the bottom, but it's unclear from the leaked shots if there's a microUSB port or whether there is USB Type-C connectivity.
There's no word on when OPPO R15 will make its debut, but if the company goes along with the annual upgrade cycle, we might see the new flagship sometime in May.
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