First phone whose touchscreen can be used in pouring rain comes from Oppo

Before the flagship Find X9 Ultra with its 200MP Sony LYT-901 main camera and 200MP periscope zoom one, Oppo will be launching an A6s Pro on April 14 that will solve a much more mundane problem that most people have had a run-in with.

The midrange Oppo A6s Pro's added value will be something that most phones quietly fail at: actually working in a rainstorm. The company calls it "Super Rain Touch," as the industry-first technology allows the touchscreen to accurately register inputs even when it's pouring on the display. This seemingly goes further than the Aqua or Rain touch tech of mainstream phones from the OnePlus line, or even dedicated rugged phones.

Oppo says it functions under conditions meeting the 30x Red Rain standard, the Chinese meteorological benchmark for the heaviest category of downpour. It can apparently even text in a monsoon, too, which could be a lifesaver in certain situations. That's on top of IP69K certification, the highest ingress rating for consumer phones, which Oppo is marketing as protection against "38 types of water."

The chassis uses the brand's Diamond Architecture drop-resistance construction, so the phone is built to survive both the fall and the puddle it lands in. The specs are squarely midrange, which bodes well for the phone's pricing, though. The first phone to sport IP69K was the Oppo-made OnePlus 15, which goes for a bit under $900 on Amazon, and the midrange should lower the bar to access this technology further.

The 6.57-inch 1080p flat display pairs with a MediaTek Dimensity 6300 (MT6835T), a midrange chipset. The real standout is the 7,000 mAh battery, which is genuinely massive for a phone this slim (8.32 mm, 193 g). The rear cameras are a 50 MP + 2 MP rear kit plus a 16 MP selfie snapper, while storage options range from 8 GB + 128 GB up to 12 GB + 512 GB.

Pricing hasn't been confirmed yet, but the A6s Pro's feature set, particularly IP69K and wet-touch responsiveness, as well as the huge battery, punch above what one would expect at this tier. Whether "Super Rain Touch" actually holds up in practice is the question that Oppo will try to answer in detail during the launch.