“The OPPO Reno design patent shows the smartphone will have thicker bezel on the top to house the selfie sensor, with no pop-up module”
OPPO has filed for a smartphone patent that has the selfie camera on the narrow top bezel. This avoids any kind of notches, punch-hole cutout or elevating camera mechanism. The patent was filed by OPPO back in March 2019 and was published on January 21st, 2020, i.e. today. And because of the O-Dot on the back, it is likely to be a Reno smartphone. Since the front-camera is placed within the top frame’s slim bezel, the phone offers a step away from the pop-up design the company has used so far in Reno phones to deliver an all-screen user experience. In this design, the bezel above the display has been made a little bigger to accommodate the selfie camera.
According to the patent image above, the volume rocker and power button are placed on either side of the phone. The patent description doesn’t reveal much about the OPPO phone, but a new (or rather old) approach to eliminate any kinds of notches for a full-screen experience. Before the advent of notches and pop-up cameras, OEMs were trying to reduce the thickness of the bezels while still leaving enough room to house the selfie camera. OPPO seems to be taking a similar approach with this phone design.
The patent further reveals a completely clean rear panel with no cameras or branding apart from a small green-colour mound, which looks similar to the O-Dot on past OPPO Reno phones. This suggests we’re looking at a possible OPPO Reno phone that will feature the cameras sitting underneath the glass rear panel. The green-coloured O-Dot helps keep the phone slightly elevated on a flat surface so as not to scratch the glass covering the camera setup.
Separately, OPPO Find X2 is currently under development as is slated to launch in Q1 2020 with Snapdragon 865 SoC and dual-mode 5G connectivity. It is said to pack a 6.5-inch curved OLED display with 3168 x 1440 pixels resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. There will be an option to tweak the resolution between QHD+ or Full HD+ and refresh rate from 60Hz to 120Hz. The handset could have a punch-hole cutout to accommodate the selfie snapper and at least four cameras at the back in a crescent shaped design as spotted by 91mobiles in a patent filing.
