OPPO just announced that it was planning to announce a new phone soon. That's the gist of the story really. I guess the company wanted to jumpstart the CES news cycle by a couple of hours, without being ready to fully unveil all the specifics.

After receiving lots of positive feedback for its cameras on flagship devices, Oppo has decided to bring its photography experience to the mid-range. Everyone likes to take photos and Oppo wants to make it affordable without having to dig deep into your pockets for the top-of-the-line specs on all fronts. The result is the new Oppo F series, of which the F1 will be soon announced and ready to launch in January.

There are no details or specifications of the F1 just yet, but based on the teaser image and some previous speculation, it seems that the F1 could well be the international variant of the Oppo A53, which was released for China in November. If that was true, the device would have a 5.5" 720p display, a Snapdragon 616, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, dual SIM slots, a non-removable 3075mAh battery, a 13MP back shooter, and a 5MP front camera. Since most mid-range phones now have a 13MP camera, it's not immediately clear what would make this a photo-centric device. Only time will tell if these speculations are true or if the Oppo F1 is a completely different device.

PRESS RELEASE