Here comes the notch: OPPO F7 set to be launched in Kenya on May 2nd

OPPO is set to officially unveil its latest smartphone, the OPPO F7, in Kenya on May 2nd, as per a media invite sent by the company’s local arm.

Like other F-series smartphones before it, the F7’s standout feature and the one that OPPO will be throwing all its marketing weight behind, is the camera.

The OPPO F7 lives up to the “selfie expert” moniker of the F series with a 25-megapixel camera on the front and a 16-megapixel counterpart at the back.

The front camera is loaded with lots of features, like “real-time HDR” and improved Artificial Intelligence smarts (AI Beauty 2.0) from what we saw in its predecessors. OPPO says that this is supposed to be a 20% improvement.

Aside from the camera, the device also has a “Super Full Screen” (others have been calling them “FullView”) which is marketing speak for a 6.2-inch display that comes in the odd 19:9 aspect ratio, a slight extension of the tall 18:9 displays we are now getting used to since they are unavoidable and some of us kind of like them, anyway.

What is catching the eye of some of us, though, is the notch. That unnecessary evil cutout at the top of a smartphone that we are now being forced to legitimize and welcome to our lives. While the notch keeps popping up everywhere, assuming the OPPO F7 starts selling before the Huawei P20 Lite, it will be the first Android smartphone with a notch to enter the Kenyan market. The first of many more that are on the way.

The 6GB RAM and 128GB onboard storage variant of the F7 won’t be making it to the local market, at least not at launch. Only the 4GB RAM variant which also packs 64 gigs of storage, will be on sale. For Kshs 36,000, Kshs 4,000 more than the asking price of the Huawei P20 Lite.