OPPO teases smartphone with retractable rear camera
OPPO loves cameras, and especially new techniques in them. For example, in 2019 at the Mobile World Congress, the company already presented one of the first smartphones with “periscopic zoom” and this year it came with a microscope lens on the OPPO Find X3 Pro. Again, the company seems to have something special in store. OPPO is teasing a device with a retractable camera.
Why extendable?
OPPO does not specify in the video what kind of camera is used. The company also does not provide any information about the function of the extension mechanism. However, because the camera can extend, the most obvious function is ‘optical zoom’. For example, do we remember the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom? This phone also had a retractable camera and could zoom up to 10x optically. The difference with this device is that the S4 Zoom had a really gigantic camera island, which could extend more than five centimeters. The S4 Zoom was therefore more of a compact camera in a smartphone housing. Or was it a smartphone in a compact camera housing?
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However, the OPPO device shows a not too flashy lens. On the video, the lens does not extend very far. It’s more of a subtle slide-out. Given this fact, it may therefore also be the case that the ‘extendable camera’ does not have a technical function, but a practical one. The camera islands of smartphones are getting bigger, bigger and bigger these days. A result of the increasingly complex techniques in smartphone cameras. With an extension mechanism, OPPO could lose a lot of technology, without having to make the camera three centimeters thick. The advantage of this is, among other things, that your smartphone wobbles less on the table and that you no longer have to ‘transport’ a gigantic camera bump.
What else do we see?
In the video we can see that the extendable camera is most likely waterproof and that it has fall detection. Which means that the camera retracts again if you drop the phone. We saw this function previously in the OnePlus 7 (Pro), among others. Finally, we see in the video that it is a camera with a 1/1.56 inch sensor, an aperture of f/2.4 and a focal length of 50 mm.
Next week INNO WORLD will take place. That’s an event where OPPO gives us a glimpse into smartphone innovation and often showcases concept products. We hope to learn more about the device in the video. What do you hope to see? Let us know in the comments below this article.
