Oppo R9 and R9 Plus will be unveiled on March 17

Having recently had its next smartphones show up on China’s TENAA site, Oppo has decided to announce when the R9 and R9 Plus will be unveiled. In a post on Weibo, the Chinese manufacturer has revealed a March 17 launch date for the next two premium mid-rangers.

Oppo’s R9 launch will be hosted at the Beijing Performing Arts Center and, thanks to the aforementioned TENAA sighting, we’re already fairly clued up on what the two new devices will look like, and what specs we can expect.

The Oppo R9 will feature a 5.5-inch full HD display (1080 x 1920), while the R9 Plus will have a larger 6-inch screen featuring the same resolution. Both phones are listed as being powered by an octa-core processor paired with 4GB RAM. The R9 is listed as having 32GB built-in storage, while the R9 Plus has 64GB, and both are expandable up to 128GB via MicroSD card.

The one disappointing feature shown in the TENAA listings is the operating system version. While it could still change, it seems Oppo is planning to launch two new phones running Android 5.0 Lollipop, where most other manufacturers are launching Marshmallow-powered smartphones this year.

Otherwise the phones look nice enough and are built from metal and glass, as is pretty much the standard combination for smartphones in today’s market. In fact, the images paint the picture of a device which looks like a cross between an iPhone and a Galaxy S.

We’ll find out more in depth information about the two new devices when they get their announcement next week.