OPPO RESORTS TO GIMMICKS IN DESPERATE EFFORT TO JOIN SMARTPHONE PREMIER LEAGUE
Chinese Company Oppo who are still struggling to convince Australians that they are a viable smartphone Company has moved to using gimmicks and pop ups in an effort to get into the smartphone premier league.
Desperate to emulate the success of Samsung and Apple and even arch rival TCL who own Alcatel, the third largest smartphone brand in Australia, Oppo is now resorting to what they are describing as “cut through” technology. This is the same strategy that Lexus used decades ago to try and break the monopoly of BMW, Audi and Mercedes in the luxury car market, the strategy failed despite the Toyota owned Company spending billions of dollars marketing their luxury car brand.
Then there was LG’s attempt to build modular smartphones, this lasted 12 months before the Korean Company ditched the idea completely.
The all-new $995 Oppo Find X phone (Notice the similarity to the words iPhone X) is an expensive high risk device that comes with no bezel and a big display screen that could easily break because of its size and the lack of structure behind it.
The Chinese Company has chosen to eliminate the notch that houses the camera on the Apple iPhone X and several other brands that have copied this concept, instead they have chosen to release a motorised pop up camera unit which presents future owners with a whole new set of smartphone problems.
Motorised actions mean more battery use and this device only has a 3730 mAh battery, which is smaller than the battery on the Samsung Note 9,
The pop up has a little electric motor that’s always on, so you can imagine what this is going to do to battery life.
That black at the top of the screen is actually the camera module that houses the pop up camera.
Then there is the spring mechanism that ejects the camera. This is a moving part and with any moving parts there is a real risk of failure. Just imagine that magic picture moment when ‘Oh shit” the camera won’t open.
Whenever you go to take a photo, whether you are using the front-facing camera or the rear camera the camera module hidden behind the screen is supposed to pop up, takes the photo, and then pops down again when you’re done. The emphasis is on the word “Should”.
Oppo claims it has tested this mechanism and it had survived 300,000 open and close cycles. Then there is the risk of leaving the mechanism up and damaging the camera unit or dropping it when the camera is up.
At the end of the day Oppo has not said whether the new camera takes better pictures than the all new Samsung Note 9, I doubt it as Oppo does not have a reputation for camera software development similar to Apple and Samsung.
What they are doing is relying on the same Google Android OS found in all other Android smartphones.
The one thing that has happened with the introduction of the new Oppo camera technology is that Oppo has managed to reclaim more display real estate.
The new Find X has a screen at the front, with a screen-to-body ratio of 94 per cent. In comparison the Galaxy S9+ only has 84 per cent screen-to-body.
Also missing from the new Find X is a fingerprint scanner instead the Chinese Company is relying on an infrared scanning facial recognition scanning system though they are not saying where the face images are being stored. Oppo has been accused in the past of sending user data back to Chinese based servers.
The problem with big display screens similar to what Oppo is attempting to deliver to market with their Find X is durability and the impact of pressure when slightly bent.
Some analysts are already saying that there are risks associated with this device due to a lack of metal reinforcing in the frame of the phone. Just make sure you don’t sit on this phone or put it in your back pocket and then sit down.
As for other features there’s no wireless charging and it’s not waterproof. There are also problems with the processor heating up when playing games or running processor intense apps.