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Meet the slimmest, sexiest smartphone you’ll never own

Published Oct 29th, 2014 1:31PM EDT

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When it comes to smartphones, thin is in. Apple’s iPhone 6 wowed consumers when it was unveiled last month and it measured just 6.9mm thick. The phone feels incredible in the hand thanks to its slender profile, but a new smartphone just announced on Wednesday makes Apple’s latest iPhone look positively plump.

DON’T MISS: Preview: Hands on with the most surprising phone of the year, Motorola’s Droid Turbo

China-based smartphone maker Oppo isn’t a well-known brand in the United States or in many other major smartphone markets. The company has been building impressive handset for many years, however, and on Wednesday it showed off its latest and greatest devices to tech bloggers and journalists.

Among the new phones it debuted was the Oppo R5, a shockingly thin smartphone with a big display and solid specs.

The Android-powered Oppo R5 isn’t a phone you’ll see very often in the U.S., if at all. For the foreseeable future, however, it has the distinct honor of being the thinnest smartphone on the planet.

At just 4.85mm thick, Oppo’s new R5 is about 30% thinner than Apple’s iPhone 6. And despite its ridiculously slim stature, it features fairly impressive specs that should make it a capable upper mid-range device. Key Oppo R5 specs include a 5.2-inch full HD AMOLED display, a 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 615 processor, 2GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel rear camera, a 5-megapixel front-facing camera, 16GB of storage and a 2,000 mAh battery.

The R5 will launch in a familiar color palette — silver, gold and gray models will be available — beginning in December of this year. The phone will cost $499 off contract, but you’ll likely need to visit eBay or find a good online cell phone importer if you want to buy one.

For additional images of the Oppo R5, visit Engadget by following the link down in our source section.

Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 10 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.