It seems that Samsung won’t be alone in launching a foldable smartphone in the future. According to a recently discovered by patent by the folks at Mobielkopen, it seems that Oppo might have plans to launch a similar device as well, where for the most part it seems to follow the concept that most foldable smartphones follow.
As you can see in the diagram above, Oppo’s design for a foldable smartphone is similar in concept to what Samsung showed off at SDC, where when the device is folded, it acts as a smartphone, but it can then be unfolded to become a tablet of sorts. This seems to be the direction that most smartphone makers seem to be taking with regards to foldable devices, so it’s not surprising to see Oppo adopt a similar concept.
Interestingly enough this isn’t the first time the company has patented an idea for a foldable smartphone. In a patent from last year, Oppo’s foldable phone design was different where it folded from the top down, as opposed to folding from left to right. However we imagine that the company probably has quite a few ideas up their sleeves so it is unclear which they might be adopting.
This is also not the first time we’ve heard about Oppo being interested in foldable devices. Earlier this year there were reports that indicated that Oppo and Xiaomi were interested in tossing their hats into the ring with foldable smartphones, but whether or not foldable phones are the next logical step in smartphones or are simply a novelty still remains to be seen.