Many of you might remember the Oppo N1 that debuted earlier this year but, a lot of you will have written off the device as another China-only smartphone. With good reason however, as many of these devices don’t make their way west. However, Oppo are a little different from most other Chinese manufacturers, for one thing they’re more open to the idea of letting talented developers tinker with the device, which flies in the face of all the bug guys. And for another, they’re one of the few Chinese manufacturers that allows you to purchase their devices from them directly, without having to use a Chinese website.
The N1 made a few waves when it was announced, as it features a 5.9-inch display and that stunning camera that rotates, allowing you to position it either at the front or at the rear of the device. Essentially making those selfies a lot easier on the eye and hopefully noise free. Aside from that, we’re looking at an incredibly powerful device running a Snapdragon 600 like many other devices, such as the HTC One and the Galaxy S4.
According to the slide above, from a CyanogenMod presentation that lists the ETA for the Oppo N1 as November. The N1 and CyanogenMod have a lot in common as the N1 is the first device that will be able to run CyanogenMod without any hackery or tomfoolery. In fact, the whole process should be as easy as pie. Oppo have a reputation of being relatively kind to the community and we hope that other manufacturers decide to follow suit.
If the N1 were to come to the West, be it Europe or even the USA, it’ll probably only be sold as a SIM-free device, which would mean no subsidies on contracts. This is hardly surprising as this is the path pretty much every Chinese device takes but, it would be nice to see carriers picking up these new types of devices. After all, competition is certainly a good thing. What about you guys? Would you like to see the N1 on shelves next to the Samsungs and Motorolas?