Love it or hate it, display notches on modern smartphones are here to stay. Every manufacturer is trying to hard to maximise the screen surface on their devices by expanding out to the edges as much as possible. Apple did it, Essential did it, Vivo did it, and now OnePlus seems to go for it as well. The notch is important to OnePlus for maximising screen real estate, said OnePlus CEO Carl Pei, indicating the next OnePlus offering will sport the display notch.
In an interaction with The Verge, Carl Pei explained why the display notch is important for the company and for the Android universe in general. “It’s a very clear decision: more real estate for the user. Learn to love the notch,” he stated.
Also read: OnePlus 6 first teasers
Carl stressed on the fact that the notch liberates more space on the display. With the display being wrapped around the earpiece and the front camera, many elements of the software UI could be pushed upward intelligently. Static elements such as the time and notification icons can be accommodated in the corners, which could liberate more screen space for the content to fit in.
The one who started it all — the mighty Essential PH-1.
When asked about whether OnePlus could eliminate the notch entirely, it was explained that eliminating the notch or even making it narrower like the one on the Essential PH-1 would have required them to compromise on the audio and selfie camera quality — something which OnePlus cannot afford to do at their growing stage. OnePlus wants to retain them all along with the fan favourite notification LED, which can be only made possible by the notch. Carl mentioned that their take on the notch will be bigger than Essential’s but smaller than Apple’s as a FaceID-like feature won’t make it to their offering anytime soon. It will be measuring around 19.616mm x 7.687mm, to be precise.
Despite OnePlus hinting at a different design from flagship Vivo and OPPO devices, the notch on OnePlus 6 is strikingly similar to the ones on them.
However, the bottom lip wouldn’t go away anytime soon, even on a OnePlus device. Carl mentioned that Apple could have a chin-less display because they could bend the OLED display’s logic board under the screen, without worrying about a swollen price figure. OnePlus cannot afford to go for that implementation as that would put the upcoming OnePlus in the mainstream flagship territory, which wouldn’t find favour with its target audience. Also, an iPhone X-like AMOLED implementation could increase the thickness of the device, which is not favourable by the company. There will also be gesture-based navigation to reduce the footprints of static elements that eat into useable space.
The smartphone that changed the norms of the notch.
In his interaction, Carl Pei clearly indicated that Apple is responsible for bringing in new trends to the tech industry and without them, smartphones wouldn’t have been the ones they are in present. This, therefore, is a clear indication of the fact that the OnePlus 6 will be heavily borrowing a lot of iPhone X’s headlining features — the notch and the gesture-based navigation. Also, if you consider the fact that OnePlus and Vivo are cousins, the in-display fingerprint sensor could also make it to the OnePlus 6. Additionally, since The Verge has possibly seen the phone, the report stresses that it won’t look identical to the Oppo R15 (we hope).
Therefore, if you like display notches, the upcoming OnePlus 6 will be up to your liking. Expect flagship class internals such as Snapdragon 845, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage on offer once it’s out for sale in the market.
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