When Samsung introduced the first flexible display phone in February 2019, it caused a decent crackdown in the mobile segment. Since then, the device with a flexible display has come a long way and the farthest is again Samsung, which will soon introduce the third generation of Galaxy Z Fold and Galaxy Z Flip, straight with waterproof body.
Other manufacturers also trust flexible displays, and the Oppo brand is experimenting with them very boldly. In November last year, it showed the world the first device with a “scrolling display”, which immediately aspired to the title of the most interesting smartphone of the year. So to be precise, it is still a flexible display, which does not bend in only one part, as in the Galaxy Z Fold and Z Flip models, but gradually rolls over the edge into the inside of the device. From a technological point of view, this is a significantly larger nut, as the display is significantly more stressed when resizing.
Oppo X 2021, as the current concept is called, has no launch date yet – it is still a development prototype on which there is still a lot of work and primarily serves to demonstrate this unique technology. The Czech representation of the Oppo brand received one of the prototypes and I had the opportunity to test it briefly – here are my first impressions.
The Chinese giant Oppo is known for having a relatively strong development center behind it, which brings new and often very original ideas to the world of smartphones every year – slide-out and periscope cameras, extremely fast wired and wireless charging, sub-display cameras and other technological delights.
Just swipe your finger and you have a tablet
At first glance, the Oppo X 2021 looks like a slightly larger smartphone, but don’t be fooled. Thanks to the scroll display, the phone can expand to the dimensions of a smaller tablet. When folded, the display has a diagonal of 6.7 ″, 7.4 inches spread out. Its resolution is 1440 x 3200 px and even boasts a 120Hz refresh rate. This almost doubles the area of the display and adjusts the aspect ratio. The transition between the two modes is relatively intuitive – just swipe your finger along the right side edge, or press the Power button twice in a row.
For this model, Oppo used an OLED panel with a patented high-strength laminate layer called Warp Track with a thickness of only 0.1 mm, which is placed under the display. Unfortunately, we do not know what material covers the upper surface of the display. The display is constantly “supported” by a movable fixed frame made of metal plates, which should not allow the screen to be deformed.
In the test prototype, however, it was seen that the display on a flat surface is not “stretched” completely one hundred percent, but since the manufacturer still has a lot of time to tune and optimize, there is no need to worry about it. However, it is interesting that the display does not deform in any way directly in the place of bending, because thanks to the thickness of 6.8 mm, the required radius is preserved in this place. Oppo boasts that 122 patents have been applied to this phone, 12 of which on the scrolling mechanism.
Switching from phone to tablet mode takes about 3 seconds. Pulling out the display and stretching the construction of the phone is smooth and quiet, only when you put your ear to the device, you will hear the soft growl of the two motors inside. During the process, the screen (including icons) on the display gradually expands until it is redrawn over a larger area. I was a little worried about how the system and the application would be rendered in this non-standard behavior, but Oppo managed everything to number one and in practice the transition looks very elegant.
Hardware parameters Oppo X 2021
System: Android 11
Dimensions: 160,9 × 117,9 × 6,9 mm, Mass: 263 grams
Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 865
Internal memory: 128 GB,
Pam. karta: –
Display: Dynamic AMOLED, 6.7 to 7.4 “(scrolling), Quad HD +, 1440 x 3200 px
Main camera: 48 Mpx, f/1.8, OIS, Dual Pixel, PDAF
Second camera: 3D ToF kamera (2x)
Third camera: , Front camera: 16 Mpx
Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2,4 a 5 GHz),
NFC:,
GPS:,
Connector: USB-C –
Fast charging:,
Wireless charging: —
Games don’t even have a problem – I tried Call of Duty, Real Racing 3 and PUBG, where I ran each title in phone mode and then had it spread to tablet mode. No game has ever fallen, and the content has easily redrawn to a larger diagonal.
The same applies to video playback in full screen mode, where the transition is again as smooth as possible. As part of the user extension, Oppo allows you to use advanced work with application windows and also offers the option of dividing the screen into two parts. For a commercial product, you can expect additional software tweaks that would be able to squeeze the maximum out of the spacious display area.
Flexible or rolling?
The Oppo X 2021 is exactly the type of device that has a chance to revive the classic design of today’s phones. The idea of the concept is to have a classic phone in your pocket, which can be converted into a small tablet if necessary. Samsung already offers the same Galaxy Fold, just in a slightly different form, and I admit that although I have been an enthusiastic user of Fold since its first generation and look forward to the “three”, the design that Oppo came up with, I find it more friendly. But there are still a number of “buts” that need to be gradually removed.
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–Oppo X 2021 vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2
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As I bit into the introduction of the article, mastering this technology for a commercial product is extremely difficult, and even Oppo itself does not plan to launch it yet, although there is speculation in the corridors that we might look forward to next year. But it will definitely be necessary to solve a number of design complications – in the tested prototype, for example, dust got into the bowels, so when you had the display rolled out, even dirt came to the surface with it.
–Oppo X 2021 vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2
–Oppo X 2021 vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2
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By the way, the test prototype has no hardware buttons for volume control. The volume is adjusted by double-clicking on the left edge – then the software volume control appears.
For the production piece, I would definitely appreciate a sensor in the equipment that would detect that there is no object (typically your finger) in the space of the upper edges, where the structure slides into each other. Several times during the “closing” of the Oppo X 2021, a piece of leather creaked between my two parts, which was definitely not pleasant.
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Finally, I will add one more interesting thing. There are only a few pieces of Oppo X 2021 in the world, and due to the enormously high development costs, the price of each of these prototypes is in the hundreds of thousands of crowns. For the sales version, of course, the price would be significantly lower, so let’s hope that we will see next year, for example.
What do you think are the future of smartphones like Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2, Z Flip whose Motorola Razr (that is, those with a flexible structure), or rather the solution that Oppo showed? Let us know in the comments.
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