For years, Oppo has been experimenting with the designs of its smartphones be it rotating cameras, pop-up modules, and sliding mechanisms to beat the heat of a notched display and attain a larger screen-to-body ratio. It wasn’t too long with at least six different patents with sliding mechanisms that were listed on various patent websites like WIPO and here’s a new and rather unique one. Note that the majority of patents will not make it through so take it with a pinch of salt.
If you check out the patent drawings, there are a lot of things to deduce assuming that it will roll out as an actual device which is rare since Oppo literally has dozens of patents around sliding mechanisms and foldable displays that I guess won’t make the cut.
As per what I can deduce, the phone’s front panel sports an ordinary form factor so it could be either just a working prototype considering the fact that sliding mechanisms are used to increase the screen real estate and there’s no point Oppo would let go the available estate. A Flat or a curved display is still a mystery and that’s pretty interesting since it will keep you digging for more information.
There’s no front camera thanks to the newly patented sliding mechanism which sorts the front panel and back panel intact while squeezing the pop-up module from in-between as you can see in Fig B. Rather a different design and mechanism altogether, the sliding mechanisms sports dual camera setup at the front and a triple camera setup at the back arranged horizontally of unspecified specs.
Next up, there’s a single hardware button to the right side which I guess is a power button or it could be a volume rocker which means we are still unclear about it at this instance. At the bottom, there are two bottom-firing loudspeakers along with a USB Type-C port and there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack so it is a bit of let down.
The back panel doesn’t have any rear-mounted fingerprint scanner so it could mean it there’s an optical in-display fingerprint scanner but these are just speculations.
Oppo Reno 5 series is in the making so it is quite possible Oppo is trying out new designs for its upcoming flagship Reno smartphone but we’ll have to wait to confirm it.
