OPPO teases a new smartphone, but it’s not the one you’re expecting

OPPO has posted a new teaser for their upcoming camera-centric device on the company’s official Weibo account, the OPPO R9. Wait, so it isn’t going to be a new OPPO flagship?

If we’re going off previous launches, OPPO’s R series has been the company’s midrange line with the likes of the R7, R7s, R7 Lite and R7 Plus. By that logic, the R9 would be yet another midrange device. However, rumours about the device’s specifications seem to hint otherwise.

It is said that the device will sport a flagship Snapdragon 820 quad-core processor mated to either 3GB or 4GB of RAM and 64GB of expandable (up to 128GB via microSD) internal storage. Those are mighty high-end specs for a device that is supposed to be in the midrange category. What’s more, it is purported to sport a massive 6-inch Quad HD display (2560×1440 pixels) plus a fingerprint scanner.

For optics, the device is supposed to pack a 21-megapixel sensor at the back with a 13-megapixel front-facing selfie snapper. Keeping everything running will be a large 3,700 mAh battery. Being a new device, the R9 is rumoured to come with Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box though there have been rumours that the device could come with Android Lollipop instead.

OPPO had a fairly quiet showing at the recent Mobile World Congress 2016 in Barcelona, not opting to reveal any devices. Instead, they showcased two technological innovations, the first one was Super VOOC — which can fully charge a smartphone in 15 minutes — and a new SmartSensor with 3-axis image stabilisation.

With such a tame MWC, one would think that they would want to come out swinging with a brand new flagship device, not an R series smartphone. An incredibly powerful R device, but an R line smartphone nonetheless. To make matters worse, an R line smartphone would likely mean the same design cues (which have even spread to the F1) — a design which we think everyone has had more than enough of.

However, a curious entry on our SIRIM database reveals something rather interesting. The entry, bearing the model number X9009, hit the certification centre awhile back and if we’re looking at the previous Find 7’s model number (X9007) this entry would indicate that this phone is the Find 9, not the R9.

This could mean one of two things. First, that OPPO are tightening their product line, cutting off the Find series smartphones and bundling them together with the R series, or OPPO are planning to launch two phones in close succession and only one of those devices will be coming to Malaysia at a time.

The former seems to be the more reasonable of the two as the rumoured specifications on the R9 are definitely high end enough to be called a flagship device. But, that also seems unlikely as smartphone manufacturers rarely kill off their flagship line. It would be as if Samsung axed the Galaxy S series in favour of their Galaxy A line.

Then again, Sony did just axe their Xperia Z line, so I guess anything is possible? Either way, this is all still speculation so take it with the appropriate amount of salt.

Thanks to @KevinNgTK for the tip!

[SOURCE, VIA, 2]