OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei deleted his “learn to love the notch” tweet shared Wednesday following backlash from the company’s fans. The statement was made shortly after the Chinese smartphone maker confirmed the OnePlus 6 will feature a cutout at the top of its screen, with Mr. Pai telling The Verge that decision “just made sense” after the firm saw product roadmaps of its display suppliers. Much like Apple and ASUS, OnePlus isn’t describing the display notch of its upcoming device as a design cue meant to make the handset more attractive but a decision targeted at increasing the overall screen real estate of the OnePlus 6 that doesn’t lead to a physically larger device.
Thanks to the notch, the OnePlus 6 will have a screen-to-body ratio of approximately 90-percent, the company said, with Mr. Pei asserting the phablet will still have a chin because removing it would also mean making the device thicker, which is a compromise that Apple made with the iPhone X but not one that other OEMs showed any intention of following so far. The executive argued the notch allows the handset to have its notification bar pushed further up, flanking the cutout and leaving the rest of the screen free for content consumption. The OnePlus 6 is hence said to boast the largest display panel in the company’s portfolio to date while not being any bigger than the OnePlus 5T. The handset has already been leaked on two occasions, with one of its previous sightings suggesting it will retain the 3.5mm audio jack and USB Type-C port of its predecessor.
With the OnePlus 5T already being unavailable for purchase in most markets, the next Android flagship from the company is widely expected to debut in the coming weeks, with previous products from OnePlus following a similar launch pattern. The handset should feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 and be offered in two variants, a base model with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal flash memory, and a more premium version with twice the storage space and 8GB of RAM. Mobile display notches remain a controversial issue among tech enthusiasts, some of which are rather vocal about speaking against such an asymmetrical design regardless of any functional benefits it brings. Last month, Mr. Pei indirectly mocked Xiaomi’s decision to delete a Twitter survey showing its own fans prefer stock Android over MIUI with a tweet that can be seen below.
Don’t delete this poll
— Carl Pei (@getpeid) February 13, 2018