OPPO's latest patent may be for the strangest pop-up phones yet

The Dutch tech news site LetsGoDigital has claimed to have found some patents filed with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and attributed to the Android OEM OPPO. The images attached show a unique take on the pop-up design that some companies have adopted in order to avoid the dreaded notch in their more recent devices.

This trend was started by Vivo in its 2018 Nex line. As this company joins OPPO under the BBK Electronics umbrella, it may be plausible that the latter is developing the pop-up concept further. The 'patent' in question shows a phone in which a pop-up module is seen lifting out of its top edge. Like the OPPO Find X, the component stretches nearly the length of this device's edge. Unlike the Find X, however, the module does not house the front-facing camera - it contains an entire secondary screen.

OPPO has also apparently taken some inspiration from Xiaomi and the slider it pioneered in the Mi Mix 3 in the same document. Unlike this phone, however, a module slides out from a long side edge of a device. This design somewhat recalls the Nokia 900; however, again, the slide-out moiety consists of more screen and not a keyboard.

In a departure from the aims of the Nex S, which may be joined in pop-up life by the OnePlus 7 soon, the main body of the smartphones shown still have front-facing cameras in their main front panel. However, should this be an authentic OPPO design, the OEM may still have time to move these parts elsewhere for an edge-to-edge experience.