Oppo is working on its own folding phone, and it has an interesting solution for the camera

You are not a smartphone company if you are not working on a folding phone, and Chinese OEM Oppo certainly does not want to be counted out.

The company has been filing patents for folding phones for some time now, but their latest Global Design Database registered with the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) in December 2018 gives us the clearest idea of what their actual device could look like.

The design shows the simpler outwards-folding folding phone/tablet, and has one interesting element which allows the device to have a large camera without making one side of the device excessively thick, or needing notches or cut-outs.

The design patent shows a pop-up selfie camera which is thicker than the thickness of each individual half, but has a protrusion on one side and a corresponding indentation on the other, thereby allowing Oppo to fit in a large camera into a still relatively thin device.

LetsGoDigital has rendered the device into a somewhat more digestible image which can be seen below:

What is clear from both the patent and LGD’s render is that the day of the thin phone may be over for a while, but further work at refining the folding phone concept may have the knock-on effect of making super-thin phones for the rest of us more common also.

What do our readers think of Oppo’s design solution? Let us know below.