The idea of a foldable phone from OPPO is not impossible. It is not far from happening as a related patent was discovered to have been filed. An OPPO phone with a QWERTY keyboard has been rendered, showing us the direction OPPO may be taking. We’ve seen renders of an OPPO foldable tablet or foldable phone but there is no definite or official plan yet. It can be assumed the Chinese OEM is testing several designs that may now be on the prototype stage.
One design OPPO may be considering is something similar to what LG is currently offering. Some LG premium phones that work with an LG Dual Screen may soon have a rival. The image render above shows a smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard.
It actually looks like a hybrid laptop-and-tablet. What we get here is that the secondary display works with an optional case. The idea is similar to the LG V60 ThinQ + Dual Screen. This means the display area may be doubled.
What’s different here though is that the OPPO phone doesn’t get an extra screen. It looks like an electronic QWERTY keyboard may be provided instead. This idea is definitely nothing new–it’s old. In fact, we’ve seen this decades ago so we’re wondering why OPPO has this design.
To be fair, the design patent was submitted in 2018. A lot has happened since then. The Samsung Galaxy Fold, Galaxy Z Flip, and the new Moto RAZR have already entered the scene. Perhaps OPPO has newer designs now.
The phone here also presents a waterdrop drop in the middle. It could be the OPPO Reno 3 or the OPPO Find X2 but the patent is only for the device cover. What could OPPO be working on now?