OnePlus has decided to beat leakers at their own game, releasing the first official photo of the OnePlus 6 for everyone to gaze at. In doing so, it’s also confirmed that it’ll be adopting the same notch style as seen on the iPhone X.
OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei gave an extensive interview to The Verge detailing his point-of-view, arguing for why the notch made sense. According to him, the brand sees it as a way to add more screen real estate rather than taking anything away since its moving the notification bar up.
Many Android users don’t see it that way though, regarding the notch as more of a blemish and a mark of a copycat design. OnePlus is trying to get ahead of their complaints by claiming that its notch will be different since it’ll put more thought and care into the space.
The cutout seen above measures 19.616 x 7.687mm, making it smaller than Apple’s notch, but bigger than Essential’s. The firm didn’t feel the need to have fancy structured light tech as seen on the iPhone X, so it’ll probably stick to using the selfie camera for unlocking the phone, along with a fingerprint scanner at the back.
OnePlus is at the moment manually testing the top 1000 Play Store apps to suss out which ones will require a compatibility mode with the notch. It plans to disguise the cutout when video is playing in such a way that it recreates the overall screen curvature. Still, there’s no denying the fact that most videos are in a 16:9 format and there will be gaps as a result.
Also Read: OnePlus 6 specs sheet leak reveals 6.28-inch display, Snapdragon 845 SoC
The OnePlus 6 is lifting another key part of the iPhone X experience – its gestures. Instead of using Android’s standard navigation keys, the device will adopt gestures like swiping up from the bottom to go to the home screen. These are actually already available in the OxygenOS beta for anyone who wants to try them out.
Pei admits that it might have taken OnePlus longer to adopt the gestures if Apple hadn’t done it first. He even admitted the same thing for the notch, stating that it might not have implemented the style as fast.
Apple typically accelerates the adoption of things within the industry. Screen manufacturers are making cutouts at the top of the panel right now, so the switch just made sense to OnePlus. The phone will still have a chin at the bottom though, since there needs to be one to accommodate the ribbon at the end of the display. There will be a 3.5mm headphone jack, so that’s one aspect in which the company is not imitating the iPhone maker.
OnePlus did share a few official specs of the handset. It’s going to have a screen-to-body ratio of 90%, making it the brand’s biggest display till date. It will also have around the same size as the firm’s existing portfolio. The company further struck down claims that the phone is going to look identical to the Oppo R15.
Pei concludes the talk by asking fans to “learn to love the notch.” He didn’t confirm what the name of OnePlus’ next flagship is or when it’ll be making an appearance. Given the timing of his defense, it might just come out before its typical June timeline.