2017 has been a great year for smartphones. From commercialising dual cameras and bezel-less displays to conceptualising fingerprint sensor under display and 5X Dual Camera Zoom, smartphones have evolved significantly.
While Samsung and LG led the premium smartphone market with their respective flagships, brands like Xiaomi, Vivo and OnePlus made their presence felt in India. Another prominent player, OPPO, which was among the fastest growing brands in China in Q2 2017, has been surprisingly silent in India for the past few months.
OPPO's home-country rival Vivo launched its latest selfie expert V7+ in India, and the handset grabbed eyeballs for the new bezel-less design and camera. Micromax, too, recently joined the bezel-less club with ultra-affordable Canvas Infinity. Is it OPPO's turn now?
Well, it's too soon to tell. But the company has sent out media invites for the launch of a new selfie expert smartphone on September 26, 2017. The invite says OPPO will launch the F3 Diwali Edition, touted as "your best Diwali gift".
It appears the new phone is going to be a festive variant of the last smartphone launched in India.
OPPO's selfie-focused F3 smartphone came to India in May. We reviewed the handset and found it a reasonably good phone. Launched at Rs 19,990, the handset is still available, but the competition has gotten intense since then.
It remains unclear if the upcoming phone will undergo any changes. Check out the existing specs here:
Display: 5.5-inch Full HD display with 2.5D Gorilla Glass 5
Camera: 13MP rear camera with dual PDAF, and dual 16MP+8MP front-facing cameras with LED flash
CPU: 1.5GHz octa-core MediaTek MT6750T processor
RAM: 4GB
Storage: 64GB, expandable up to 128GB
Battery: 3,200mAh
Software: Android 6.0 Marshmallow based ColorOS 3.0
Battery: 3,200mAh
Add-ons: Fingerprint sensor, Dual SIM, 4G VoLTE, metal unibody
To recall, OPPO had launched Diwali-edition of OPPO F1s smartphone last year with the same specs as the original handset at the same price. The only difference was the Diwali theme built-in the phone and a Diwali-themed lamp with flame engraved on the gold-hued back with signatures of Bollywood icons --Hrithik Roshan and Sonam Kapoor, on the rear-side.
However, OPPO might do something similar or surprise us completely. Stay tuned.
