This is getting ridiculous at this point – in the pursuit of a notchless smartphone screen design, it appears OPPO has resigned to odd placements of their selfie cameras. A leaked patent shows a design that has the pop-up selfie module appear from the right side of the phone, where the volume rockers would be!
Image credit: CNIPA
The patent was spotted registered with the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) and if we look at the back of the phone, the selfie camera looks to be part of the back camera system – however, the lens only points towards the user, so no hopes of re-using the main camera as the selfie shooter here.
Image credit: CNIPA
Speaking of the setup, we see an interesting placement on the very edge of the back panel – it looks like this is to allow for the odd pop-up design. From here, we also see at least two more lenses while the third circle could resemble either another lens or a flashlight.
One reason for OPPO’s supposed new design could be to reduce device thickness – the side mock-ups make the phone look thinner than most phones with a pop-up selfie camera. There’s also little to no camera bulge at the back – perhaps OPPO is on to something after all.