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OnePlus 6 notch will be narrower than iPhone X

OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei said so.

Gordon Gottsegen CNET contributor
Gordon Gottsegen is a tech writer who has experience working at publications like Wired. He loves testing out new gadgets and complaining about them. He is the ghost of all failed Kickstarters.
Gordon Gottsegen
2 min read

If you hate a phone with a screen notch, another alternative just bit the dust. The OnePlus 6 will have a notch.

oneplus-6-notch-the-verge

Yep, that's a notch.

OnePlus

But if you're worried that the screen cutout will be as noticeable on the OnePlus 6 as it is on the  iPhone X , you can relax a little bit. OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei said the OnePlus 6's notch will be narrower -- because it won't include all the same sensors. 

OnePlus' upcoming phone is yet another phone to have a cut-out in the center of the display to house its front-facing camera. OnePlus shared its first official image of the OnePlus 6 with The Verge, and confirmed the notch design to us.

OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei added that moving the display and notification bar further up the OnePlus 6 is what makes it possible to give the phone a 90 percent screen-to-body ratio. 

Twitter did not take it kindly. Pei deleted his tweet in support of the notch -- "Learn to love the notch," it said -- perhaps due to backlash from OnePlus fans. We can confirm the content of the original tweet; we saw it ourselves. But the negative comments are stricken from the public record, though some outcry from antinotchers remains.

Watch this: OnePlus 5T: 3 months in

Notches are one of the latest trends in phone design. Critics say that notches are ugly or get in the way of watching full-screen videos and looking at pictures, but phonemakers use them as a way to reduce the dead space on the phone's front. 

Popularized by the iPhone X (it also appeared on the Essential Phone), phone makers from Huawei to Asus to Oppo replicated the design, and future phones, such as the LG G7, are rumored to get notches too. Even Google is jumping on the bandwagon. The next version of the Android OS, called Android P, will support notches.

As a nod to notch-haters, Huawei's P20 and P20 Pro let you "turn off" the notch by blacking out the top corners. OnePlus declined to comment when we asked if the OnePlus 6 would have a similar option to erase the appearance of the notch in the phone's settings.

Confirmed OnePlus 6 specs

OnePlus also shared these specs with The Verge (and confirmed them to us):

  • A bottom bezel or "chin"
  • The largest screen of any OnePlus phone without increasing the overall footprint of the phone
  • It will differ from sister company Oppo's R15

Other rumors suggest that the OnePlus 6 could pack some serious processing speed. And since the current OnePlus 5T is gone for good in some countries, we're eager for the OnePlus 6 to launch.

Read next: Hate the iPhone X 'notch'? This phone lets you choose

Read also: Why some of the flashiest Android phones won't sell in the US

Update, 9:24 p.m. PT and March 29 at 12:46 p.m. PT: Corrected Carl Pei's title and added the news that he pulled his tweet in support of notches.