OPPO Popup, Slider Second Screen Patent Is As Crazy As It Sounds

There are patents that make you wish they existed right here, right now. And then there are patents that leave you scratching your head, questioning the thinking process that went into the idea. OPPO's latest patent is, without question, one of the latter. We've all heard of dual screen phones but OPPO's idea of one that slides out definitely takes the crown in terms of oddity and uselessness.

Most of the patents we've seen so far employed all sorts of tricks and gimmicks to solve the design puzzle of having an all-screen phone while still having access to a front camera. You'll find none of that here as the camera and front sensors are still present on the top bezel of the phone. An incredibly thin bezel at that.

This new OPPO patent, in contrast, is all about expanding the phone's screen without resorting to foldable displays. And the only way to do that is to have a second screen. Dual-screen phones, however, require you to flip the phone around to get access to the second display. OPPO has come up with a different solution that utilizes two designs that have been used to solve the bezel problem.

Instead of a popup camera, the patent shows a popup display that rises from the top of the phone. Another variant uses a slider mechanism, but one that peeks from the side rather than the top or bottom. Neither case gives the user a screen equal in size to the main screen but just a smaller extension.

LetsGoDigital theorizes that such an extra screen could be useful for having controls that get out of the way of immersive content, like videos and games. That's an admittedly niche use case that may not justify the cost of an extra screen. That also doesn't take into account the durability implications of such a design. Fortunately, it's just a patent.