The race for the foldable smartphone now seems to be really heating up. With Samsung leading the charge, others like LG, and ZTE are also working on a true foldable smartphone. Samsung’s design of the phone is almost complete and it nears mass production by the
second half of 2018. However, a new Chinese challenger has shown up on the foldable phone list. Oppo seems to have patented a number of designs clearly visible to be of a bending phone.
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The good news is this isn’t an implementation like the ZTE Axon M. Rather its a true bendable display with a hinge that stays behind the display and hence invisible. Similar to other patented designs, Oppo envisions a foldable phone to be like a book. The patent shows the display to be on the outer side while the camera on the inner side. There are a number of patents here, but all differ chiefly in their camera setup, rather than overall look.
Moreover, the patent shows a bezel-toting device which probably means no 18:9 aspect ratio. The different images show a single camera variant, a dual camera variant with central placement and an iPhone X-like placement.
As always, with patents, we have no idea when one of them will see the light of the day. But it is proof that Oppo is considering and hopefully working on a future foldable phone. If all goes right, we should see one by Samsung by the end of this year.
