OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei has confirmed that the company’s next flagship smartphone – OnePlus 6 – will indeed have a notch at the top. The top notch became popular after Apple introduced the iPhone X last year. Several Android phone makers including Asus, Oppo, and Vivo has already adopted the ‘notched’ display design for their smartphones and OnePlus is seemingly assimilating the trend. Pei revealed in an interview what motivated the Chinese company to turn its head towards this design, along with sharing the first official glimpse of what the notch would look like on OnePlus 6.
Carl Pei told The Verge that the company has taken much care while crafting the notch for the OnePlus 6 display. However, he did not really refer to the company’s next flagship smartphone with that name. Talking about the size, he said that the OnePlus 6 notch will be smaller than the one on iPhone X but bigger than what Essential Phone has. He also took a jibe at the Essential Phone for having an incredibly small notch that OnePlus couldn’t have gone for without compromising on the features, quality, and the array of sensors usually found on the top of a phone. “It’ll be bigger than the Essential Phone, smaller than the iPhone”, he was quoted as saying.
However, Pei said that the company still doesn’t feel a need to give a ‘structured light’ on the phones, similar to iPhone X’s Face ID feature. This is the reason why the company is insisting on a comparatively smaller notch for the next flagship. The company also gave away the exact measurements for the notch as 19.616mm x 7.687mm. While a notch on the top is likely to make the hardware part enticing, the company is also focusing on the software and that the apps are compatible with the new display design.
The company has tested over 1,000 Play store apps and games to figure out the compatibility requirements for them. The clock on the upcoming OnePlus smartphone has been shifted to the left side so as to allow more space for status icons. In addition, the company has engineered a way that will conceal the notch while playing a video so that a proper curvature is produced. OnePlus emphasises that the notch at the top is not something to be seen as an aesthetic element, instead, it is what the next flagship will offer the users to use the display to its fullest. This is when the new swipe actions come into the picture that would eliminate the need of touch buttons on the phone.
Pei agreed to the universally claimed statement that most incumbents usually deny – Apple is a trendsetter. He said that Apple “accelerates the adoption of things within the industry”, however, he subtly hinted only at the sensible innovations, unlike the removal of the 3.5mm audio jack. OnePlus is not doing away with the 3.5mm audio jack anytime soon and its next flagship will come with the 3.5mm headphone port. The next flagship OnePlus phone will also have a chin, unlike the iPhone X. Pei gives the reason behind this design as the ribbon that connects the logic board on the device has to be fit into the chin. Apple’s solution to this mechanism is an OLED display that has a curve at the rear that it uses to place the ribbon, thereby making the smartphone thick and costlier, Pei notes.