WatchOS 5.1 update pulled following reports of bricked Apple Watches
Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends
If you downloaded Apple’s WatchOS 5.1 on your Apple Watch, it’s better to wait before hitting that install button. Those who did follow through with the update found their Apple Watch bricked and can’t seem to find a way to fix it, 9to5Mac reports.
A small group of users have taken to both Reddit and Twitter to report their Apple Watch is stuck on the Apple logo while the WatchOS 5.1. installation is taking place. Even restarting the Apple Watch and the iPhone it is paired with hasn’t been able to fix the issue. Some users have been experiencing the issue for several hours, with no successful solutions.
Since the report was published, Apple pulled WatchOS 5.1 so it’s no longer available to download. According to TechCrunch, the company also released a statement explaining that it is aware users are experiencing an issue and have pulled the update as a precaution. “Any customers impacted should contact AppleCare, but no action is required if the update installed successfully. We are working on a fix for an upcoming software update,” Apple said in the statement.
WatchOS 5 first launched last month, following Apple’s annual hardware event each fall. The new operating system comes with a variety of features from improved health tracking to a walkie-talkie mode. There’s also an improved user interface that makes it easier to multitask — there are small status icons to indicate an app is in use, new watch faces, and grouped notifications (that are also featured on the iPhone with iOS 12).
While the latest operating system comes with new perks, there are a few additional WatchOS 5 features exclusive to the Apple Watch Series 4. While older models of the Apple Watch include an optical heart rate sensor to track resting heart rate, calories burned, and more, the Series 4 can also notify you if your heart rate appears to be too low. It’s also capable of screening your heart rhythm in the background — it will alert you if it detects irregular rhythm, which could point to atrial fibrillation. The device can’t diagnose an issue, but it can detect it for you so you can then consult a doctor.
But the most impressive feature on the Series 4, is the built-in electrical heart sensor that will allow you to measure the electrical activity of your heartbeat straight from your wrist. While it was the most exciting feature introduced on the smartwatch, it’s not even available yet — Apple says the supporting app will be released later this year.
As for Apple’s WatchOS 5.1 software update, we will update this article if there is any new information released about a fix for the issue.
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You can now create personalized emoji in Google’s Gboard — here’s how
Apple is rolling out iOS 12.1, which features a slew of new emoji designed to be more inclusive to those with red hair, curly hair, and no hair at all. Google, however, isn’t one to be left out and has announced an update to Gboard that brings a new sticker style, plus the ability to make an emoji that looks just like you.
In other words, you can create emoji with all different hair colors, different skin tones, glasses freckles, and so on. The new so-called Emoji Minis actually exist in the form of stickers, meaning that while they will send more easily between Android devices, you should be able to send them to iOS devices too without any issues. The Gboard update is available on both Android and iOS.
Interested in creating a new personalized Emoji Mini for yourself? Here’s how to do so.
Make sure you have the latest Gboard update.
Open a message or email and open the keyboard.
Tap on the Stickers icon on the bottom. It looks like this:
Tap on the Emoji Mini icon. It looks like this:
Press “Create” in the prompt that appears.
Take a photo of your face. Try to make sure there’s enough light for a good photo.
Gboard will then present you with a few options. Choose the one you like and tap on it.
You’ll then be able to change your Mini Emoji to make it look more like you. You can change face shape, hair color, nose shape and more. If you’ve ever made a Nintendo Mii, it’s very similar to that process.
Tap “save” in the top right-hand corner.
You will then be presented with a range of Mini Emoji stickers that you can send to friends.
It’s not an overly difficult process, but it does take a few minutes. After you’ve done it the first time, however, you won’t have to go through the process again — Gboard will remember your preferences and serve up emoji tailored to those preferences. Of course, you can go through the steps again if you would like to tweak or change your emoji, or you can customize the Emoji Minis you already have set up.
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Apple’s Acquisition of AR Startup Leap Motion Fell Through Twice, Due to ‘Eccentric’ Founders and Poor Management
A new article by Business Insider today takes a look into failed talks that occurred between Apple and startup Leap Motion, which the Cupertino company tried to acquire twice in less than five years. Leap Motion is a company that focuses on making advances in the fields of virtual reality, augmented reality, and hand tracking technology.
According to multiple unnamed insiders, the most recent deal was nearing completion in spring 2018 before poor management, “swirling negatives,” and “eccentric behavior” of Leap Motion’s young co-founders Michael Buckwald and David Holz halted the talks.
Prior to that, in 2013 the first meeting was held between the two companies and things reportedly went very poorly after Holz — then 24 years old — said he had no interest in joining Apple. Sources say Holz was insulting to Apple’s staff, told the company representatives that Apple was no longer innovative, its technology “sucked,” and discussed the ways that Google’s Android was better than iOS. During this time, Apple was said to have been mainly interested in Leap Motion’s team to help work on its own AR and gesture-based projects.
Despite this poor first meeting, Apple continued to express interest in acquiring Leap Motion in the ensuing years, particularly as augmented reality and virtual reality technologies began to be more mainstream. Some of Leap Motion’s original employees even left the company to work for Apple over the years, and are now helping with Apple’s various AR projects, some former Leap Motion employees said.
The latest rumors point towards Apple developing AR smart glasses, which could potentially include a VR component. Apple’s interest appears to lean more towards AR, since it has already backed AR as a service with the ARKit developer platform, and CEO Tim Cook often talks excitedly about the potential of AR.
Because of this, Apple made another attempt to acquire Leap Motion earlier this year, but talks fell through once again. Apple was on the verge of acquiring Leap Motion for between $30 million and $50 million in the spring, and had already started talks with the startup’s human resources department and sent out offer letters to employees. As Leap Motion celebrated the upcoming acquisition, Apple pulled its offer.
Business Insider says it remains unclear why exactly Apple made this move at the last minute, but one thing appears certain: “the founders ultimately thought [Leap Motion] was more valuable than the offers on the table.”
Many people close to the company say that the issues afflicting Leap Motion are a case of poor management: Much of the company’s venture capital was spent on sleek office space in San Francisco’s pricey SoMa neighborhood, complete with tech industry perks including beanbag chairs and daily lunches, and costly engineering salaries.
That Leap Motion should fall upon dire financial straits when the company’s core technology had such great potential was described by many as a failure that could have been easily avoided.
Increasingly, it looks like Leap Motion’s technology might end up bought as a hidden gem for a company looking to add its hand-tracking technology to future smartglasses products — but only if it can get the founders on board with the deal.
Now, Leap Motion is said to have new meetings lined up to explore other potential deals outside of Apple’s offer, but it may be too late for the startup. According to sources familiar with the company, Apple’s latest bid for Leap Motion was the AR/VR company’s “last-ditch opportunity” to sell the business, which has faced financial instability for years.
Apple makes acquisitions of smaller companies like Leap Motion all the time, with news coming just in the past month of Apple acquiring Asaii and Spektral. Asaii is a music analytics platform that Apple will likely integrate into Apple Music and iTunes, while Spektral creates real-time green screens that can intelligently separate people and objects from their original backgrounds to overlay a new setting, which could be integrated into a future iPhone.
Tag: Apple acquisition
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Apple Seeds First Developer Beta of iOS 12.1.1 With Bug Fixes
Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming iOS 12.1.1 update to developers, one day after the release of iOS 12.1, a major update that brought multiple new features to the operating system that runs on the iPhone and iPad.
Registered developers can download the new iOS 12.1.1 beta from Apple’s Developer Center or over-the-air once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Developer Center.
As a 12.1.x update, the new software is minor in scale and has been released to address bugs that were not able to be fixed in the iOS 12.1 update. According to Apple’s release notes, iOS 12.1.1 “contains bug fixes and improvements.”
Given the non-specific information provided by Apple, we may not know exactly what issues are fixed in the beta until more specific release notes are provided, but we’ll update this post if we find anything new in the update.
iOS 12.1.1 follows iOS 12.1, which was the first major update to iOS 12. iOS 12.1 introduces Group FaceTime for video chatting with up to 32 people, real-time Depth Control and eSIM support for Apple’s newest iPhones, and fixes for several major bugs.
The update fixes a problem that could cause excessive skin-smoothing when using the front-facing camera on the iPhone XS, XS Max, and iPhone XR, and it addresses LTE connectivity issues on those same devices. It’s also worth noting that the iOS 12.1 software introduces battery-related performance management features on the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X to prevent unexpected shutdowns.
What’s new in iOS 12.1.1: The iOS 12.1.1 update reintroduces the feature that lets you take a Live Photo while on a FaceTime call, and it makes improvements to the FaceTime user interface.
Following the update, FaceTime features a reworked bottom bar that includes quick access buttons for muting a call and flipping the camera. Sliding up on the bottom bar brings up additional options with conversation participants.
Previously, FaceTime users were required to tap on three dots to access a secondary menu with these features.
Related Roundup: iOS 12
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Apple Seeds First Beta of macOS Mojave 10.14.2 to Developers [Update: Pulled]
Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming macOS Mojave 10.14.2 update to developers, just one day after releasing macOS Mojave 10.14.1.
The new macOS High Sierra 10.14.2 beta can be downloaded through the Software Update mechanism in System Preferences after the proper profile has been installed from Apple’s Developer Center.
We don’t yet know what improvements the second update to macOS Mojave will bring, but it is likely to include bug fixes and performance improvements for issues that weren’t able to be addressed in the macOS 10.14.1 update.
Should we discover anything new in the 10.14.2 beta, we’ll update this post.
The new 10.14.2 software comes just a day after Apple released macOS 10.14.1, an update that brought support for Group FaceTime on the Mac and introduced new emoji characters.
Update: Apple has removed the macOS Mojave 10.14.2 developer beta from the Developer Center for unknown reasons.
Related Roundup: macOS Mojave
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Apple Seeds First Beta of tvOS 12.1.1 to Developers
Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming tvOS 12.1.1 update to developers for testing purposes, one day after releasing tvOS 12.1, the second update to the tvOS 12 operating system designed for the fourth and fifth-generation Apple TV models.
The new tvOS 12.1.1 developer beta can be downloaded onto the Apple TV via a profile that’s installed using Xcode.
We’re not yet sure what fixes and changes the tvOS 12.1.1 update might bring, but it’s likely to focus on bugs that were not able to be addressed in the tvOS 12.1 update.
Apple provides little information on its tvOS software and tvOS updates have historically been minor in scale, so we may not know what’s included in this update. Should anything new be found, we’ll update this post.
Related Roundups: Apple TV, tvOS 12Buyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Caution)
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Apple’s HomePod 12.1 Software Missing for Most HomePod Users [Update: Fixed]
Apple has been updating the HomePod software alongside major iOS updates, so it was something of a surprise when iOS 12.1 was released yesterday with no accompanying HomePod 12.1 software to go along with it.
As it turns out, though, there is a HomePod 12.1 update, it just appears to be bugged for those who updated their HomePod to the version 12 software after updating to iOS 12.
On Reddit, a user who purchased a brand new HomePod running HomePod software version 11 was able to update to the 12.1 software, which apparently includes stability updates and bug fixes.
On Twitter, developer Khaos Tian said that Apple is offering up the HomePod update with an internal URL that prevents people from downloading it.
lol Apple is serving HomePod update with internal URL so no one can update it to 12.1 🤦♂️ Someone needs to kick Pallas V2 and have it return the right value. pic.twitter.com/WxsYzJVsHu
— Khaos Tian (@KhaosT) October 31, 2018
Apple may be able to fix this HomePod software issue relatively easily, so we could see the HomePod 12.1 software become available for download shortly.
Update: Just after this article was posted, Apple made the HomePod 12.1 software available. It can be downloaded from the Home app on the iPhone and the iPad by tapping on the house-shaped icon in the upper left, tapping on “Home Settings,” selecting your home, and choosing the “Software Update” option.
Related Roundup: HomePodBuyer’s Guide: HomePod (Neutral)
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Mophie’s $70 Wireless Charge Stream Desk Stand Now Available for Purchase
Mophie’s newest wireless charger, the Charge Stream Desk Stand, is now available for purchase from the Mophie website for $70.
Designed to work with the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, X, XS, XS Max, and XR, Mophie’s Charge Stream Desk Stand is its first upright wireless charging option, designed to hold the iPhone in an upright vertical or horizontal position while it charges rather than a flat horizontal position.
Mophie’s Charge Stream looks a lot like Mophie’s Charge Stream Pad+ or Wireless Charging Base propped up with a metal stand, and that’s because it can be removed from the base and used as a standard wireless charging pad.
The Charge Stream delivers up to 10W of wireless charging power, and it will charge Apple’s iPhones at the faster 7.5W charging speed. A Quick Charge 2.0 wall adapter and a 1.5m USB-A to micro-USB cable are included to power the Charge Stream.
Tag: Mophie
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Deals: Save on RAVPower’s USB-C Hubs and $100-$300 on 2018 MacBook Pros
Following in the wake of Apple’s Mac and iPad event yesterday, MacBook Pro models that were refreshed over the summer have received a few discounts at Adorama and B&H Photo. The new sales are currently the best found online among the major retailers and offer $100-$300 off original prices.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
- 13-inch MacBook Pro (2.3 GHz, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) – $1,699.00, down from $1,799.00 at B&H / Adorama
- 15-inch MacBook Pro (2.2 GHz, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD) – $2,199.00, down from $2,399.00 at B&H / Adorama
- 15-inch MacBook Pro (2.6 GHz, 16 B RAM, 512GB SSD) – $2,499.00, down from $2,799.00 at Adorama
For older model MacBook Pros, there are also numerous sales on Mid 2017 refreshes:
- 15-inch MacBook Pro (2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD) – $1,899.00, down from $2,399.00 at B&H
- 15-inch MacBook Pro (2.9 GHz, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Silver) – $2,099.00, down from $2,799.00 at B&H / Adorama
- 15-inch MacBook Pro (2.9 GHz, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Space Gray) – $2,149.00, down from $2,799.00 at B&H / Adorama
A few of these sales will expire later tonight at 11:59 p.m. ET, so be sure to browse both websites and place your order soon if you’re interested. If you’re on the hunt for USB-C accessories to go along with a new MacBook Pro or 2018 MacBook Air, RAVPower has kicked off notable sales today that will last through most of November.
- VAVA USB-C Docking Station with 4K Dual Display – $119.00 with code QSFGATW8, down from $149.00
- VAVA Gigabit Ethernet USB-C Hub For MacBook – $9.99 with code ADANN87P, down from $19.99
- VAVA 8-in-1 USB C Hub for MacBook – $34.99 with code NKHFIWQU, down from $59.99
- HooToo 6-in-1 USB-C Hub for MacBook (Silver and Grey) – $34.99 with code LTQ6VM67, down from $59.99
- HooToo 7-in-1 USB-C Hub for MacBook – $33.99 with code RH6NNKJZ, down from $49.99
For more information on the latest sales, visit our Deals Roundup.
Related Roundup: Apple Deals
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Oppo R17 Pro review: More cameras, more batteries, more speed
Oppo has had a very exciting year, releasing smartphones like the Oppo Find X and the Oppo F9, which offered innovative and unique features. Although we’re in the home stretch of 2018 smartphone releases, it doesn’t seem like the company is slowing down. Its latest release, the Oppo R17 Pro, comes equipped with two batteries, three cameras, an in-screen fingerprint sensor, and a host of other interesting features.
As exciting and futuristic as the phone sounds, how does it perform day to day? Find out in our Oppo R17 Pro review.
Design
The Oppo R17 Pro is one of the most beautiful and elegant designs I’ve had the chance to lay my hands on all year.
Most smartphone designs this year have followed a very basic formula of metal and glass. The Oppo R17 Pro is no different, but it makes it exciting. The Oppo R17 Pro is one of the most beautiful and elegant designs I’ve had laid my hands on all year. The R17 Pro has a sleek design with tapered edges, rounded corners, with a metal and glass combination that exudes a high-quality feel. It’s dense but it doesn’t feel too heavy or too light. The perfect balance of weight and ergonomics make the R7 Pro extremely comfortable to hold.
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The most eye-catching part about the R17 Pro’s design is its new fog gradient color, which beautifully flows from purple to blue. This may remind you of the twilight color of the Huawei P20 Pro. Unlike the P20 Pro, the coating on the Oppo R17 Pro’s rear glass panel isn’t reflective. Instead, it has more of a satin appearance and looks less like glass. I like Oppo’s take on this gradient color scheme better. It hides fingerprints and smudges more effectively and blends in more seamlessly with the metal frame. The color will turn a lot of heads, and while it’s super photogenic, you have to see it in person to truly appreciate how incredible it looks.
Going around the Oppo R17 Pro you’ll find the typical slew of buttons and ports in their usual places. The power button is comfortably placed on the right side with volume buttons on the opposing left side. The bottom houses a single speaker, microphone, USB Type-C port, and a dual sim card tray. The top of the phone has another microphone but otherwise is completely blank. Unfortunately, there is no headphone jack if you care about that sort of thing.
You also won’t find a fingerprint sensor anywhere on this phone, at least not the traditional kind. Much like the Vivo X21 or the more recent Huawei Mate 20 Pro, the Oppo R17 Pro has a fingerprint sensor underneath the display. In-screen fingerprint sensors seem like the future of fingerprint sensors on our smartphones and the R17 Pro is the next smartphone to dive into this technology head first.
Oppo claims the R17 Pro’s in-screen fingerprint sensor will unlock the device in under half a second, which is reasonably fast for an in-screen fingerprint sensor. The phone lives up to that claim most of the time, but it isn’t consistent. There were several instances where it took a second or two before my fingerprint unlocked the phone. Sometimes it failed to unlock entirely. It didn’t happen enough to make me stop using the fingerprint sensor entirely, but it shows this technology still has room for improvement before it reaches the reliability and accuracy of a standard fingerprint sensor.
Display
The display is surrounded by extremely thin bezels and has a very tiny notch giving it an impressive 91.5 percent screen-to-body ratio.
The Oppo R17 Pro has a large 6.4 inch AMOLED screen with 19.5:9 aspect ratio and 2,340 x 1,080 resolution. The screen looks fantastic, with the vibrant colors, great contrast, and inky deep blacks typical of AMOLED displays. The 1080p resolution is a step below QHD, but my eyes couldn’t tell the difference. It’s still plenty sharp, and text and graphics are crisp and comfortable to read. The display is surrounded by extremely thin bezels and there’s a very tiny notch, giving the phone an impressive 91.5 percent screen-to-body ratio.
The notch on the Oppo R17 Pro is the same waterdrop design Oppo used on the F9 and F9 Pro, similar to the one on the Huawei Mate 20. The notch is this small because it only houses a camera — the proximity and light sensors are hidden underneath the display. There’s still an earpiece in the shape of a tiny slit on the outer bezel above the notch. Oppo’s ingenuity for creating such a small notch is impressive and something more manufacturers should pick up on. It’s more attractive and eats up a lot less screen.
Performance
Inside the Oppo R17 Pro is a Snapdragon 710 processor, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage and an equivalent 3,700mAh battery. There’s no microSD card slot, but 128 gigabytes of internal storage should be more than enough for most consumers. The Snapdragon 710 puts the R17 Pro more in the midrange category, as it sits below Qualcomm’s more powerful Snapdragon 845, but above the 600 series Snapdragons.
The Oppo R17 Pro could be best described as a high-end mid-range smartphone and the specifications and benchmark scores certainly reflect that. In everyday use, the R17 Pro performs well. The device is very quick to launch applications and multitask, and it feels very smooth when navigating through the interface or scrolling through a webpage. The 8GB of RAM made for an excellent multitasking experience and the phone never came close to using up all the RAM. The total amount of RAM usage hovered around 4.5GB on average.
Batteries on smartphones usually aren’t that interesting to talk about but this one is due to the fact that there are two of them inside of the R17 Pro. The R17 Pro has two 1,850mAh batteries giving a grand total 3,700mAh. The purpose of the two batteries is to provide for faster charging than if the device only had one battery. The phone charges via SuperVOOC Flash Charge using the provided charger and according to Oppo, SuperVOOC can reach close to 50W of charging power, providing 40 percent battery in 10 minutes.
The Oppo R17 Pro does not have wireless charging but who needs wireless charging when you have charging speeds as fast as SuperVOOC.
I tested this claim with the phone completely dead and sure enough, the phone was at 40 percent after 10 minutes. I took this a few steps further and after another 10 minutes of charging the R17 Pro reached 74 percent. At the 30 minute mark, the phone was almost fully charged at 96 percent. This was truly impressive. The phone also stays cool to the touch while charging as SuperVOOC keeps the heat in the charging brick instead of transferring it to the phone. Despite the glass back the Oppo R17 Pro does not have wireless charging but who needs wireless charging when you have charging speeds as fast as SuperVOOC.
As for how long the phone lasted on a single charge, I was getting through a full day very comfortably. A full day’s worth of use for me typically consists of reading emails, social media, watching YouTube, playing games, and taking photos. I sometimes ended the day with around 50 percent left and on those days I did not charge the device until the following day. Oppo doesn’t make it easy to gauge battery life statistics but I estimate I got anywhere between 15 and 20 hours per charge.
Camera
Triple cameras on smartphones are starting to crop up more and more and the Oppo R17 Pro is one of the few smartphones released this year with three cameras. The primary camera is a 12MP sensor with OIS and a variable aperture of f/1.5 and f/2.4 similar to Samsung Galaxy S9 or Galaxy Note 9. Unlike Samsung’s implementation which lets you control the aperture both automatically and manually, the Oppo R17 Pro decides automatically which aperture to use based on the lighting conditions, with no option to manually change the aperture.
The secondary sensor is 20MP at f/2.6 and leveraged to create background bokeh for portrait mode and 3D portrait mode lighting effects. There’s a handful of different lighting effects meant to make your portraits look more professional or playful, but I thought they were a little gimmicky.
The third camera is probably the most unique of the bunch. It’s a TOF (Time of Flight) 3D stereo camera. The 3D camera allows you to capture 3D images in seconds by circling the camera around an object or person. It reminded me a lot of the 3D Creator from Sony Xperia devices. I didn’t find the 3D scanning particularly useful and on my review device, the feature was very buggy. The 3D feature often crashed the camera or froze during the scanning process and the majority of my 3D images did not come out perfectly. Here’s hoping a software update from Oppo will fix most of these issues.
The front-facing camera sounds equally as impressive with a whopping 25MP sensor, and selfie photos come out quite good with natural colors and skin tones. The results aren’t quite as sharp as what you might get from a phone such as the Google Pixel 3, but they’re more than adequate.
Similar to many other smartphone cameras on the market the Oppo R17 Pro comes with AI camera features. AI beauty mode is available on the front facing camera for hiding blemishes and softening details in faces. I’m usually not a fan of beauty modes, as they’re typically aggressive, but I didn’t mind it on the R17 Pro. The results were very subtle and selfies still looked natural with the mode enabled. The rear camera has AI scene recognition and can recognize 23 different scenes. After the camera recognizes the scene it will optimize the image based on what it sees to produce a better photo.
Ultra Night Mode significantly improves shadow and highlight detail and produces a brighter image.
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Picture quality from the 12MP main camera has been great. Images are sharp and detailed, and color reproduction is vibrant without appearing unnatural. What I’ve been most impressed with is the Ultra Night Mode for low-light or night time photography. This will automatically kick in if the camera decides the situation is too dark, or you can toggle to it manually. You’ll get a visual cue on the screen when a night mode photo is being taken and it will require you to hold the phone steady for a couple of seconds while it works its magic. Ultra Night Mode significantly improves shadow and highlight detail and produces a brighter image. The differences with and without it are astounding. It oversharpens the images, making them look a little unnatural, but the overall results are still fantastic.
Check out the full gallery of camera samples below for easy viewing or click here for the full res images.
Software
The software is ColorOS version 5.2 on top of Android 8.1 Oreo. If you’ve used any recent Oppo device the software experience will feel very familiar. ColorOS has always been a little too bright, playful, and iOS-like for my taste, but it comes jam-packed with features. On your left-most home screen lives a smart assistant giving you quick access to specific functions and other glanceable information such as the weather, calendar, and step tracker.
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The smart sidebar can also give you quick access to functions and apps by swiping in from the edge of the display similar to Samsung’s edge UX features. ColorOS supports many other smart features, such as smart driving and gesture controls for split-screen multitasking, taking a screenshot, and turning on the display.
Although the Oppo R17 Pro doesn’t come with Android 9.0 Pie, it still supports gesture-based navigation in place of the traditional on-screen navigation buttons. As to whether the R17 Pro will get updated to Android Pie remains to be seen. Hopefully Oppo does it sooner than later.
Specifications
| CPU | Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 2.2GHz speed Octa-Core, 64-bit processor |
| GPU | Adreno 616 |
| RAM | 8GB |
| Storage | 128GB |
| microSD Slot | None |
| Batteries | 1,850mAh + 1,850mAh batteries Combined total: 3,700mAh |
| Biometric security | In-display fingerprint sensor |
| Rear Cameras | 20MP lens + 12MP lens + “3D stereo camera” F1.5/F2.4+F2.6 LED monochrome flash |
| Front Camera | 25MP |
| Display | 6.4-inch AMOLED 2,340 x 1,080 resolution “Waterdrop” notch 402ppi Screen-to-body ratio: 91.5% |
| SIM | Dual-SIM slot, nano |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth 5.0 WLAN 2.4G / WLAN 5.1G / WLAN 5.8G / WLAN Display |
| Ports | USB Type-C 3.1 No headphone jack |
| Network bands | Click here |
| Dimensions | 157.6 x 74.6 x 7.9mm 183g |
Pricing & Final Thoughts
The Oppo R17 Pro is priced at 4,299 Yuan (~$509). I wouldn’t expect an official U.S. release anytime soon, or even at all. The best alternative for U.S. residents is the OnePlus 6T, which offers almost identical hardware minus the extra camera and fancy fog gradient color. You may also prefer the software experience of the OnePlus 6T as it’s more like stock Android.
Don’t miss: OnePlus 6T first impressions: All about trade-offs
The Oppo R17 Pro has a lot of great things going for it. I like how Oppo keeps pushing boundaries with every smartphone release. The camera is great, the in-screen fingerprint sensor is fairly reliable, and SuperVOOC Flash Charge is wickedly fast. The phone is also quite attractive, especially with the fog gradient finish. If you can get your hands on one, it’s a phone worth considering.
