Oppo has unveiled its latest smartphone called the F9, and as you can tell, it has a notch. But not like any notch you’ve likely seen before. No, this isn’t a shameless iPhone X ripoff or a cheap knockoff of Apple’s device with a smaller width. This phone actually blends the notch in with the rest of its design, making it less of an eye-sore for notch haters.
The company calls the F9’s screen a “Waterdrop Screen” because of how the notch looks. It’s less intrusive than even something like the Essential Phone and still leaves plenty of room for an earpiece crammed into the top edge of the phone and a proper selfie camera. We’ve seen Oppo try to eliminate the notch before with the Find X, but that was a more extreme approach. This time around, I would just call this notch a small cutout in the screen for the selfie shooter. Nothing more.
If you decide to pick up an F9, you may be disappointed by the specs. They’re not necessarily bad, but they aren’t flagship-level. Under the hood sits an eight-core Mediatek Helio P60 processor with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. The screen measures in at 6.3-inches with a Full HD+ resolution and 19.5:9 aspect ratio atop an LCD panel. There’s also a 3500mAh battery with VOOC Flash Charge, giving users two hours of talk time with a short five-minute charge.
In addition, there are dual cameras on the back weighing in at 16MP and 2MP, a 25MP selfie shooter, a fingerprint scanner, a headphone jack, Android 8.1 Oreo, and an odd microUSB port.
The Oppo F9 will launch in Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. It’ll later become available in other markets like Morocco and Egypt. Pricing sits at about 7,690,000 dong, or roughly $332.
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