The Vivo X11 will feature a virtually bezel-less design with a high screen-to-body ratio, one industry insider said on Saturday, adding that the device is “coming soon.” The successor to the Vivo X9 and X9 Plus will also likely be offered in two variants boasting different screen sizes, but both are said to follow the same design language that a number of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) including Samsung and LG started adopting earlier this year. Unlike the Vivo X9 series, the Vivo X11 may feature extremely thin top and bottom bezels and an edge-to-edge display panel that will presumably be protected by 2.5D glass. The 2016 models shipped with Full HD (1920 x 1080) screens and were primarily aimed at selfie enthusiasts, but if the Dongguan, Guangdong-based phone maker is now looking to shift its focus to the screen real estate and quality, the OEM may opt to up the resolution of its upcoming devices.
The Vivo X11 is expected to compete in the upper mid-range market segment, just like its predecessors did. With the Vivo X9 Plus being powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 653 and 6GB of RAM, Vivo may now opt to include the Snapdragon 660 and 8GB of RAM into the larger model, though it remains to be seen whether the company decides to expand on its 64GB of internal flash memory, especially since the previous device didn’t feature a microSD card slot. The more affordable Vivo X9 was offered with 64GB and 128GB of storage space, though it also lacked support for expandable memory.
One recent leak indicated that the Chinese consumer electronics manufacturer is close to developing viable optical fingerprint readers that can be embedded into a smartphone display and may beat both Samsung and Apple in the race to commercialize that technology. The Vivo X11 may thus be the first smartphone to ship with an in-screen fingerprint sensor, especially since the alleged prototype of such a Vivo-branded device essentially looked like the Vivo X9 with smaller bezels. More details on the Vivo X11 and the company’s other hardware efforts are expected to follow soon, presumably no later than summer.