UPDATE: According to The Verge, OPPO has confirmed the development of a 10x zoom camera lens for smartphones. In fact, the source claims that the tech is quite similar to OPPO’s 5x camera zoom technology that was introduced back in 2017, as expected. This technology basically utilizes a periscope-style prism in order to enable the necessary physical depth. OPPO’s 10x camera is 15.9-159mm-equivalent, which essentially means it starts with an ultrawide perspective and zoom into medium telephoto perspective.
The company’s 10x camera zoom tech has OIS, but OPPO did not share aperture details just yet. The company has also confirmed that this technology will be shown off at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2019 in Barcelona, which is starting next month. This makes sense, as the 5x camera tech was shown off during MWC 2017. In fact, OPPO claims that this technology is now ready for mass production, which was not the case with its 5x tech, so… there’s plenty to look forward to.
EARLIER: According to the newly-released media invite, OPPO may be launching a new optical zoom technology tomorrow. OPPO invited Chinese media to attend the event, and with its media invite, it’s hinting that a 10x lossless optical zoom technology will be announced during that event.
During MWC 2017, OPPO did not announce a single smartphone, but it announced its 5x optical zoom technology which managed to get a lot of attention. Unfortunately, that technology did not make it to a single one of OPPO’s smartphones just yet, and the company is already aiming to demo a 10x optical zoom solution.
Considering that the 5x optical zoom is yet to be included on a commercial smartphone, we’re guessing that the company’s press event will only demo the 10x optical zoom technology, while the company will not announce an actual smartphone that will be available in the near future, but it remains to be seen.
This technology may actually debut at MWC 2019 as well, as 5x optical zoom technology did back in 2017. OPPO is expected to make a presence at MWC 2019, and having this timing in mind, the tech may make its way to Barcelona.
So, how will that tech work? Well, we presume that the principal is the same as with OPPO’s 5x optical zoom tech, and the company’s 5x setup is essentially a 5P lens, which is followed by a 90-degree angular prism. That prism directly the light to a camera sensor, which was vertically oriented in OPPO’s demo back in 2017. The OIS unit is included as well, on the other end of the line, so that it kicks in even if you’re utilizing 5x zoom.
You can think of this technology as a hybrid optical zoom tech, as OPPO basically found a way to utilize optical zoom without having the right lenses in order to do so, and based on the company’s demo, the tech works really well, which leaves us with a question, why didn’t this technology make its way to a smartphone already? Well, that’s a question only OPPO can answer, and that the company will hopefully answer either tomorrow, or during MWC 2019.
It is quite odd that OPPO did not release a smartphone which utilizes its 5x optical zoom tech, as it has been two years at this point since the technology made its debut. Truth be said, we cannot know if the technology is any good considering we didn’t have a chance of testing it out.
There is always a chance OPPO opted to skip releasing its 5x optical zoom tech to make way for a 10x optical zoom tech, of course, in which case we’re expecting the company to make its plans clear, and give us a timeframe of when will this technology make its way to one of its smartphones. The OPPO R19 and R19 Pro are actually expected to arrive in the near future, so those two phones would be ideal pioneers of such technology, at least the OPPO R19 Pro. That’s only a wish on our end, who knows what will happen, but we have to admit, this technology does sound interesting.