We always like to see phone makers innovating in their designs, and it would seem that the team at Oppo is busy experimenting with a few different ideas – including a handset with a removable rear camera module.
As spotted by 91mobiles, a recently published Oppo patent outlines the concept. The module can be removed completely from the phone, giving users far more flexibility when it comes to taking snaps and framing selfies.
The small camera block would come with its own lithium battery, as per the patent, and support NFC, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth for wireless connectivity. There’s also a USB-C port on show as well, so you could plug the module directly into the phone’s data port.
As well as giving users more flexibility in terms of taking photos, the published patent also opens up the possibility of having a camera module that could be upgraded – so those who need a better-quality rear camera could pay extra to get one fitted.
In the sketches put forward by Oppo, the camera module has two sensors and a flash on board, but that’s by no means certain to be the final design. As always with patents, take this as evidence of what’s on the drawing board at the moment, rather than what’s actually going to appear in a final product.
An Oppo phone set up like this would have no need for a selfie camera, which means no notch or punch hole, which means a clean and interrupted front display – so this idea could perhaps be used instead of a selfie camera embedded under the screen.
Whether many people would want to have to remove the camera module every time they needed to take a selfie is one question raised by this patent, though it would presumably give you a lot of flexibility when it comes to remote control, if you can use the phone to operate the module wirelessly.
We’ll have to wait and see if and when this becomes a reality, just like Oppo’s rollable display concept. Before any of these innovations see the light of day, Oppo will be one of the first manufacturers to bring out a phone powered by the new Snapdragon 888 chipset.
Via Engadget
