Oppo shows Apple how to eliminate iPhone’s notch with style

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Oppo Find X
The Oppo Find X doesn’t need a notch.
Photo: The Verge

Love it or hate it, the iPhone X’s notch is a necessity for now. Or is it?

Some smartphone manufacturers are already using new design methods to deliver truly edge-to-edge displays. Chinese manufacturer Oppo today revealed its new Find X, which shows Apple how it could eliminate the notch in style.

The notch on the iPhone X is home to its speaker, front-facing camera, and all the clever sensors that enable Face ID. We don’t have the technology to put these things behind a screen yet, so they have to go somewhere else.

But do they really need to be inside a notch that intrudes on our gorgeous edge-to-edge screens? Oppo says no.

Oppo Find X eliminates the notch beautifully

The new Find X, unveiled in Paris today, has a truly edge-to-edge, 6.4-inch screen with insanely slim bezels. 92.25 percent of its front panel is display, and at first glance, it looks like the device has no front-facing camera at all.

But in actual fact, the Find X has a 25-megapixel front-facing camera and a 3D facial scanning system. It also has two rear-facing cameras that aren’t immediately obvious, either. So, where are all these sensors?

They’re cleverly hidden inside a mechanism that gloriously slides up from the top of the phone when you need it, and gloriously slides away again when you don’t. The process takes just 0.5 seconds, and you have to see it.

Check out the hands-on video below from The Verge.

The Find X’s software is clearly inspired by iOS, and just like the iPhone X, it relies solely on facial recognition — there is no fingerprint scanner. The Find X itself looks more like a Samsung Galaxy S9 with slimmer bezels.

The Find X will be available in the U.S. and Europe

On the inside, the Find X is packing a flagship Snapdragon 845 processor with 8GB of RAM and up to 256GB of storage. It’s powered by a 3,730mAh battery and offers two SIM card slots as standard, and it boasts fast-charging technology.

Another thing that makes the Find X special, aside from its design, is that it will be the first Oppo phone sold in North America and Europe. Pricing and availability will be confirmed soon, Oppo says. In the meantime, we can only hope that Apple is taking note.

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