Future: Oppo Smartwatch, A Chip & Under-Display Camera
Oppo, a Chinese mobile device company, has big plans for 2020, and has begun to reveal several of them at its current Innovation Day event in Shenzhen, China. Oppo confirmed the arrival of the company’s first smartwatch during the keynote presentation, showed off a selfie under-display camera on a smartphone, and teased the arrival of an Oppo-processor.
Details are still slim, but we know this so far.
Oppo Smartwatch
Early next year, Oppo will launch a smartwatch, advertising the device during the Innovation Day event. Apart from a dark teaser image and the announcement it will be launched in the first three months of 2020, the organization has not given anything away. Oppo has not spoken about a smartwatch for the first time either, and in August 2019 Shen Yiren, the global vice president of the company also mentioned plans for a smartwatch in 2020.
Oppo has not spoken about a smartwatch for the first time either, and in August 2019 Shen Yiren, the global vice president of the company also mentioned plans for a smartwatch in 2020. Oppo has not spoken about a smartwatch for the first time either, and in August 2019 Shen Yiren, the global vice president of the company also mentioned plans for a smartwatch in 2020.
However, this is the first time a teaser image has been shown, and it appears that Oppo is planning a rectangular-faced watch that looks close to the 2015 Asus ZenWatch design, along with the Apple Watch. This is not a bad thing, because ZenWatch was one of the best-looking smartwatches available at the time when it was launched. It remains to be seen whether that day has passed, now that the Apple Watch is commonplace. We don’t know if Oppo will pick WearOS from Google for its phone, or if it will create its own app. In the same way as Huawei and Xiaomi, if it plans to launch the watch both in China and abroad, it may opt for its own network.
Under-screen camera
Oppo has now shown off a concept smartphone with an under-screen sensor, which was first discussed in June. It has called the technology a “Perspective Panoramic Screen,” and it avoids the need for a selfie camera knot, hole-punch, or pop-up. This will make it easier to implement larger, edge-to-edge screens while also maintaining device water resistance.
The photo above indicates that under the window the camera unit is still visible, but this depends on the colors shown at the moment. The more dark the screen becomes, the less visible it is. The technology is still a work in progress, and when it can arrive on a phone we can buy, there is no indication.
Oppo’s future chip plans
Oppo Research VP, Liu Chang, spoke on the company’s future plan to make its own chips in an interview on Innovation Day. Rumored to be known as the M1 family, the chip can start as a co-processorin life, rather than as a direct challenger to the Snapdragon or Kirin processors of Qualcomm or Huawei. It already produces the chips needed to operate the VOOC charging system, which is extremely fast.
If the M1 operates as a co-processor, or at least not a system-on-a-chip to drive a phone, it may be similar to the Kirin A1 used by Huawei in smartwatches and other intelligent wearables. Presumably, the M1 is being produced with funding from both MediaTek and Qualcomm, but when it will be ready for launch, there is no current information. According to recent research, Oppo is China’s number three smartphone company by market share and also markets its mobile devices across Europe, the Us, India, and Japan.
