OPPO is yet to launch a foldable smartphone but the company has been patenting designs for such devices for a while now. So far, almost all of them have been generic without much to brag about. But now, the company has filed four different patents that showcase smartphones that can fold multiple times sporting a unique block structure.
These four patents were filed by Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp Ltd. with the Japan Patent Office (JPO) on May 11, 2020. But they got approved and published on November 2, 2020. We stumbled across them while confirming some details of the company’s under-display camera smartphone design patent earlier today.
Now that being said, let us have a look at all the four foldable smartphone design patents by OPPO.
Patent 1
This patent details a design with six blocks and two hinges. The phone folds inwards and the dual-camera setup with an LED flash is located at the bottom front. Whereas, the rear of the handset is blank.
Lastly, due to the two hinges, this handset can be folded either completely or half.
Patent 2
This design patent also has two hinges and six blocks. However, the triple camera setup with an LED flash is located at the back of the phone instead of the front. Above all, it is the only design out of four to fold both inwards and outward.
To be clear, the top portion of the phone folds inwards while the bottom section of the device folds outwards. Hence, it can be folded at both the hinges at a time, making it smaller to carry in pockets easily.
Patent 3
Unlike the first two patents, this one has a total of eight blocks but the number of hinges remains two. Interestingly, there are no cameras on this one. Maybe it features under-display cameras.
As far as folding is concerned, both the hinges fold outwards.
Patent 4
The last patent is similar to the previous one but with two differences. That means it also has two hinges and eight blocks.
But it folds inwards and also sports a triple camera setup on the back accompanied by an LED flash.
Having said that, we are not sure if these designs will ever make it to the hands of consumers in near future. Maybe they will but probably not now as foldables are still a new category of devices with risks like durability and app compatibility.
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