Oppo’s 10x lossless zoom makes blurry photos a thing of the past
Chinese smartphone maker Oppo turned the world of smartphone photography on its head at MWC 2019, announcing a smartphone with one of the most advanced cameras to date. The yet-to-be-named device will feature three lenses: an ultrawide, a telephoto and a third dedicated to producing images with a 10x lossless zoom.
During its MWC keynote, I was able to get some hands-on time with the device and briefly test its main feature: that incredible camera. Its primary 48-megapixel ultrawide and secondary 120-degree telephoto cameras combine to deliver an incredible focal range that starts at 16mm and extends all the way up to 160mm.
It’s the third camera, however, that’s the main talking point here. This is the world’s first smartphone to offer up to 10x lossless zoom – well, the first that actually looks like a phone, at least, and not a compact camera.
To achieve this, Oppo had to develop a new camera module that is not only very thin (6.76mm, to be precise) but that’s also able to capture a high level of detail without any image degradation. It achieves this by adding a flat “periscopic” module to the third camera that sits on a D-cut lens. It’s a different approach over your conventional smartphone and a highly impressive feat of engineering.
Operating the phone’s zoom lens is extremely simple: just pinch to zoom or drag your finger along the zoom slider in the camera app to operate the level of zoom. Not having the ability to transfer my test shots onto my computer, I could only judge the photos by eyeballing them on the phone’s display. Still, what I saw was impressive: at full zoom I saw no loss in detail, pinpoint sharpness, no unwanted image noise and near-perfect colour tones.
What about hand-shake I hear you cry? Well, Oppo has thought about that, too, integrating optical image stabilisation (OIS) on all its camera modules, including the 10x zoom, to prevent blurring while zoomed in.
In terms of the rest of its features, the unnamed phone looks pretty standard. The screen is an 18:9 aspect ratio effort and uses IPS tech with a central notch. There’s a USB Type-C port at the bottom and a speaker grille, too, but no 3.5mm headphone jack.
As far as other features and specifications are concerned, you’re going to have to wait, I’m afraid, as Oppo were reluctant to confirm those. I’d be very surprised if the phone wasn’t equipped with the latest and greatest tech, however.
Pricing has also yet to be announced but expect it to revealed in Q2 2019. I’ll be sure to update this article once more information comes to light.
Oppo announces its 5G smartphone
Oppo also confirmed its commitment to 5G during its MWC 2019 keynote. Although it fell short of actually announcing a real product, Oppo did claim that it would be releasing the “world’s first” 5G device, which will use the Snapdragon 855 chipset and X50 5G modem. It’s set to launch globally and has now reached the stage of mass production. However, aside from this information, little was shared on the device’s specifications, design or features.
Rewatch Oppo’s Innovation Event 2019 on YouTube:
