A preview video for an Oppo event next week sure seems to suggest it won’t just be Samsung with a foldable phone in the near future. And that’s not all.
It’s been two years since foldable phones first arrived, and while we’ve liked parts of what we’ve seen, they haven’t exactly blown our eyelids off. Not yet, anyway.
Originally, it was Huawei, Motorola, and Samsung that offered folding phones, but in the past year, it’s really just been Samsung that has evolved the format. We’ve seen it in the pocketable Galaxy Z Flip 5G, which moved to the more stylish but battery draining Galaxy Z Flip 3, while the tablet style of Samsung foldable has seen three generations, jumping from the original Galaxy Fold to the Galaxy Z Fold 2, and all the way to this year’s Galaxy Z Fold 3, which we liked more than we expected.
But that has largely been it, and beyond Lenovo’s foldable computer, the world of foldables has been left mostly for Samsung.
Oppo may well be looking to challenge that shortly, however, releasing a video hinting what we can expect from its innovations conference next week, Oppo Inno Day, which despite the name actually runs across two days.
A video has popped up previewing a future model, the Oppo Find N, which appears to be the company’s first foldable. We’ve previously seen a concept rollable from the company, and even a complex foldable concept, but Oppo is yet to offer a market-ready foldable phone, and that looks like what the Find N could be.
Looking at it solely from the preview, the Find N appears to be like the Galaxy Z Fold 3 in that it’ll be a phone with a rear screen that unfolds into a tablet, but little information outside of this.
“With the Find N, we have solved the main pain points in previous foldable smartphones, such as the crease in the display and overall durability of the device, by inventing perhaps the best hinge and display designs available today,” wrote Pete Lau, Chief Product Officer at Oppo. “We look forward to truly pushing the folding screen experience forward.”
As to what that actually means, Oppo hasn’t said. The preview is, after all, merely just a preview, with the main event to be held next week, and it may not be alone.
A pair of smart glasses is also apparently on the cards, as are some developments in mobile phone cameras, with a short video also released hinting at retractable camera, possibly providing zoom range with an upcoming phone camera.
These are but tidbits, and interesting tidbits to end the year on.
We doubt Oppo will release either device in Australia by year’s end, even if they’re announced next week, and expect we’ll hear more about the developments either early in the new year, or when Mobile World Congress 2022 rolls around in late February next year.
In either case, the world of foldable phones is about to get a little more interesting, and that’s good news for the folks out there keen to fold over a new page in their smartphone journey.
