Oppo has filed a patent in China that shows what its futuristic device with extendable display would look like.
After pioneering in different areas in the smartphone industry, Oppo might be going after one more. The Chinese company might be looking to enter the foldable smartphone club with a rather futuristic approach that has not been thought of by others so far. It could be redeveloping foldable displays to become extendable, which could be used how sliding smartphones were.
In a patent, discovered by LetsGoDigital, Oppo has devised a new smartphone design that has the sliding mechanism for its display. There are 28 product images in the patent filed at the China National Intellectual Property Administration, better known as CNIPA. While I am not sure whether this new concept is something Oppo is willing to take up, but it is futuristic and shows how foldable smartphones can be rethought creatively.
The Oppo device will have a form factor of a touchscreen smartphone but a little a compact. But the device slides upwards to reveal a hidden part of the display. The display suddenly becomes full-fledges, similar to the ones we see on smartphones these days. There are no buttons on the screen except for one on the side. The leak claims this button could be responsible for triggering the entire display extension, but the schematics are a little unclear about this concept.
There are cameras as well on the back of the device, which remain exposed, irrespective of the change in display length. Normally, this gadget has a square design in a small format that can easily fit into pockets. From a larger viewpoint, this design does look similar to that on the Motorola Moto Razr, except for the mechanism they both have. Razr uses the bendable mechanism for the display — something that has been the industry standard for foldable devices and used on Samsung Galaxy Fold, Z Flip, and Z Fold 2.
Oppo has not detailed how its extendable display on the unnamed device would work. It has not provided any how-to for operating this device but there could be possibility Oppo is developing it. Much like other cases of patent, Oppo’s futuristic device may never leave the patent world, but if it does it might take some years before its commercial release is sought.
Oppo demonstrates a lot of devices in their prototype versions quite frequently every year, but they come out much later into markets. For example, the pop-up camera technology was demonstrated much earlier before they actually made it to markets. Oppo last year showed off its under-display camera technology. While it is yet to roll it out commercially, ZTE is launching a smartphone next month with the same tech.
Source: www.indiatoday.in
