OPPO had filed a patent in April 2021 in China describing three smartphone models, each with a unique secondary rear display implementation housed within the camera module itself.
The patent was published recently on December 23rd for all to see and was spotted by LetsGoDigital, which has also produced a few images to better depict the unique designs within. These are given below.
As seen in the photos, OPPO is interested in both squarish and circular camera modules. While the squarish module will only have two cameras that sit atop a display, the circular design is a bit more exotic, comprised of four lenses surrounding the secondary display.
Some will recognize the design as being obviously inspired by the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra with its ginormous camera module that ate up most of the device’s rear and housed a tiny display. However, there are a few differences — OPPO’s design integrates the display with the rear cameras better, allowing the camera module to be much smaller. The shrinkage, however, does not appear to affect the display as it looks to be nearly the same size as the Mi 11 Ultra.
There are other perks as well. The display when fitted into the middle of the camera system allows the user to automatically look straight into the camera when they look at it.
More advantages that rear displays in general offer are effortless high-res, rear camera quality selfies, and of course, info when the phone is lying on its front.
However, for OPPO, there is an extra incentive — under-display cameras. While UD cameras have improved greatly since their advent, they still in no way match the quality of regular front cameras. A secondary display at the back should help overcome this shortcoming by giving users a high-quality alternative.
A realme executive had earlier hinted that 2022 would be the year of foldable phones and under-display cameras and it’s obvious that OPPO will be hopping on to the bandwagon. We may thus perhaps see a phone from the company with both a secondary screen and an under-display camera. If yes, then the likely candidate for it will be the Reno series which historically has been an ideal experimentation ground for OPPO.
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