Presented in November in China, the new concept of Oppo crossed the continents to find itself in France, here is the Oppo X 2021, a concept with an impressive rolling screen!
While trade shows and physical presentations are no longer common, we had the chance to take in hand the Oppo X 2021, a concept smartphone with not an XXL screen or a foldable screen but a scrolling screen and yes, it’s just super impressive. The future? We don’t know but it’s never been closer.
An unrolling screen
When we discover the Oppo X 2021, we discover a very classic smartphone. It is a little less wide than its competitors despite a 6.7-inch screen, but a little thicker and above all, it is heavier. While we are used to smartphones around 220g like the iPhone 12 Pro Max or the Galaxy S21 Ultra (see our test), the Oppo X 2021 is clearly heavier and reminds us of the weight of the Huawei Mate XS or more recently the Galaxy Z Fold 2.
The screen edges are not the thinnest we’ve ever seen, but very quickly, we’ll forget about them because the strength of the screen is not in its edges. Indeed, with a double-tap on the sleep button on the right edge or a finger slide up on the same button, the 6.7-inch screen with its long format is transformed into a 7.4-inch screen close to the 4:3 format that we have already seen on folding smartphones from Huawei or Samsung.
And when we talk about transformation, we hardly weigh our words because apart from the noise of the engine that unrolls the screen of the Oppo X 2021, the latter changes its format without you really noticing it. The first time is simply amazing. We are so surprised and subjugated by this transformation that we were left speechless, but really. It was necessary that we made it several times before taking our spirits and understanding what it was happening.
100,000 openings for now but Oppo aims for 200,000
When the screen unrolls or rolls up, the transformation is really invisible to the naked eye and that’s probably the most impressive thing. To put it simply, imagine a garage door that unrolls, it’s the same principle but in the size of a smartphone. And that’s perhaps the most impressive thing, it’s so well done that you can’t see anything. And yet, it’s only a prototype. For now, Oppo assures that its system is capable of 100,000 openings and closings, but the Chinese brand is aiming for 200,000 as proposed by the technology behind the sliding camera of the Oppo Find X.
Back on Earth
After a good ten openings and closings to see in detail how it all works, we obviously wonder about dust. Oppo assures that the system is made so that dust cannot enter the device. On the other hand, the brand recognizes that there can be some at the level of the mechanism outside, which seems normal to us in itself.
The screen itself is in the same vein as the Huawei Mate XS. Once unrolled, if you pay attention to the reflections, you can see that the part that unrolls is not as flat and uniform as the fixed part. Now, that’s because we paid attention to it and in use, it doesn’t show at all. Once rolled up and put away, the screen offers a curved left edge. If there are no functions for now, Oppo could offer functions on the edge as Samsung or Sony already offers.
Otherwise, no front camera and for the photo block on the back, we had no technical characteristics. One could think of a block taken from a Find X2 (see our test HERE) or a Reno 4 Pro (see our test HERE) just to serve as a technical demo. We remind you that the Oppo X 2021 is above all a concept and that no commercial product is currently planned by the Chinese manufacturer.
Oppo X Interface
One of the strengths of Android, or not, is its ability to stretch. So, needless to say, Android applications stretch to fit the screen. And that’s when you realize that there are only two positions, it’s either rolled up with a 6.7-inch 21:9 (roughly) screen, or unrolled with a 7.4-inch 4:3 (roughly) screen. As a result, it’s the same thing for the user interface. Oppo has just worked on the transition in “Cross Fade” mode to switch from one format to another. Even if it remains basic, we can say it’s impressive.
