BBK-owned smartphone brand Oppo has patented a new design for the pop-up selfie camera on a smartphone.
According to a report by Let’s Go Digital, Oppo had filed the patent at WIPO(World Intellectual Property Office) in March 2020. The patent highlights that Oppo may use a light path deflection mirror on its pop-up camera setup.
The report claims that the patented smartphone will come with a flat display with a large screen-to-body ratio.
“Oppo has designed an ingenious pop-up camera system with two cameras and two light path deflection mirrors – in the shape of a mirror or a prism (triangle). As long as it can reflect light, it can change the light path and is functional. With the extendable camera system you can take selfies as well as regular photo and video recordings,” explained the report.
The report suggests that with this design, only the reflective unit moves up and down and not the cameras adding to the durability of the device.
“The cameras are facing up. The pair of mirrors / prisms are positioned perpendicular to the cameras and can be tilted to change the direction of photography,” added the report.
Just last month, it was announced that Oppo and OnePlus had merged their hardware R&D. This means the same team will design Oppo and OnePlus phones and subsequently, OnePlus smartphones may look very similar to phones from Oppo.
Online reports had claimed that the R&D unification process started in December 2020 and has been completed in January 2021. Some media reports claim that after the unification, Oppo and OnePlus will become more like Mi and Redmi in design and other features.