How OPPO is conquering the market: from the thinnest smartphones to collaborations with Marvel

The company is included in Smartphone Rankings Shaken Up Once Again as Huawei Surpasses Apple, Moving into Second Position While Overall Market Declined 1.8% in Q2 2018, According to IDC, one of the five largest global smartphone manufacturers according to IDC and is CHINA DIGITALTop 10 Most Popular Smartphone Brands and Models in China (Summer 2018) as the second most popular Chinese brand according to What's on Weibo. In 2018, it entered the markets of Italy, France, Spain and the Netherlands, and now OPPO smartphones are sold in more than 40 countries.

The thinnest smartphone in the world

In 2019, flagship smartphones differ little in size: phablets won the market - hefty devices in the whole palm. But in the early 2010s, everything was different: smartphone manufacturers tried to make devices as miniature as possible.

OPPO Finder

OPPO R5

OPPO has written itself in the history of this race at least twice. In 2012, the company released Finder - a smartphone with a claim to the title of flagship and a record body thickness of 6.65 millimeters. Two years later, the OPPO R5 model came out - already 4, 9 millimeters thick. Both smartphones were the thinnest at the time of release.

Selfiphone with beautification

It's hard to imagine this now, but in the early 2010s, not all smartphones had front-facing cameras. And if they did, they could not boast of a resolution of more than a couple of megapixels: these sensors were intended for video calls, not for snapshots. To take a photo of yourself, you had to turn the device and try to get your finger on the blind shooting button.

OPPO was one of the first companies to anticipate the popularity of selfies and rely on front cameras to work.

OPPO Smartphones: Selfie Phone with Beautification

OPPO smartphones: OPPO was one of the first companies to anticipate the popularity of selfies and focus on front cameras

The OPPO Ulike 2, released in 2012, was quickly dubbed the selfie phone. Firstly, the front camera has a resolution of 5 megapixels. Secondly, OPPO was one of the first to experiment with beautification - software algorithms that make the skin a little whiter and smoother, the eyes more expressive, and the lips brighter. These algorithms now work in most smartphones.

Shell ColorOS

A shell or fork is a software add-on over an operating system. If a manufacturer wants to equip a smartphone with a recognizable interface or add a couple of unique functions to it, you cannot do without it.

In 2013, OPPO introduced ColorOS, a shell that has become one of the company's calling cards.

This is one of those forks on Android that works in a clear and logical way. The shell supports custom gestures and application widgets, and in the latest versions it optimizes system performance to save battery power and RAM.

The latest versions of ColorOS are designed specifically for devices with bezel-less screens and include navigation gestures for smartphones without buttons.

50 megapixel stills

The most important indicator of any camera is resolution. When choosing a smartphone, you shouldn't be concerned with specifications: a large number of megapixels does not guarantee excellent image quality. The area of the matrix is important here, and in this case smartphones cannot compete with serious cameras: modest dimensions interfere. But you can still achieve a high-resolution frame.

In 2013, OPPO released Find 7, a camera phone that shoots at 50 megapixels. The size of the matrix has not increased, and high-resolution images were obtained by combining several photos taken with the main 13-megapixel camera.

Proprietary fast charging technology

Smartphone manufacturers can compete as much as they want in the amount of batteries in their devices, but you can't jump above the limit of lithium-ion batteries - with active use, even the longest-running models will last a day and a half.

Therefore, they decided to approach the issue of autonomy in a different way and focus on accelerating charging. OPPO did the same, and did not use the developments of other companies, but patented its own - VOOC.

The technology is based on the simultaneous charging of the cells into which the battery is divided. This approach protects the device from overheating and extends the life of the smartphone.

In some models, OPPO uses SuperVOOC technology - with it, the smartphone charges up to 40% in 10 minutes. The power of this charging is 50 W, it is implemented in the OPPO RX17 Pro and OPPO Find X models.

For such charging, you need a special adapter with high power and special cables - everything comes with the standard equipment of the devices.

The first smartphone with a motorized rotating camera

If a manufacturer talks about an excellent camera, as a rule, he means the main one. Frontal ones are usually much inferior to them in resolution and aperture.

In 2014, OPPO decided to abandon the front camera altogether and made a bet on the first smartphone with a motorized rotating camera OPPO N3.

OPPO smartphones: OPPO decided to abandon the front camera and made a bet on a smartphone with a rotating camera

A 16-megapixel rear camera is responsible for selfies, which turns to the user "face" at the press of a button. New smartphones with similar mechanisms are still found on the market today.

Record increase

Zoom is a headache for all smartphone camera sensor manufacturers. The telephoto lens simply cannot physically fit into the camera module of a small device. On most smartphones, this is solved by software cropping.

OPPO found another solution and introduced 5x technology in 2017, and 10x in 2019. In the new flagship of the company Reno 10x Zoom Edition, three lenses with different focal lengths are responsible for magnification at once.

OPPO smartphones: OPPO unveils 10x zoom technology in 2019

Maximum bezel-less

Refusal of everything superfluous on the front panel is no longer an experiment, but a rule of good form.

There are no cutouts or holes on the bezel of the new OPPO flagships. The company is experimenting with retractable modules with sensors and camera eyes.

In 2018, the company achieved a record bezel-less performance with the release of the OPPO Find X slider with a screen-to-bezel ratio of 93.8%. And in 2019, she showed smartphones of the OPPO Reno series with a wedge-shaped retractable front camera module.

Marvel's Avengers Limited Edition and other collaborations

In 2017, OPPO launched the OPPO R11 branded model for Barcelona fans.

OPPO smartphones: OPPO launches OPPO R11 branded model for Barcelona fans in 2017

And one of the versions of OPPO Find X with Super VOOC fast charging technology was released in the design of Lamborghini sports cars.

OPPO smartphones: One of the versions of OPPO Find X has been released in the design of Lamborghini sports cars

The latest of these collaborations is OPPO and Marvel. Timed to coincide with the premiere of the latest "Avengers" OPPO F11 Pro differs not only in themed design of the back panel, but also in the cover with the Captain America's shield included.

OPPO Smartphones: Timed to coincide with the premiere of the latest "Avengers" OPPO F11 Pro features not only a themed design of the back, but also a cover with Captain America's shield included

In addition, OPPO has partnered with the game PUBG and is a partner of Wimbledon matches and Victoria's Secret shows.

What's next

The latest development is the Reno series of smartphones. At the moment, two models have been announced: Reno and Reno 10x Zoom. They differ in screen diagonal (6, 4 and 6, 6 inches), RAM (6 and 8 GB), a set of cameras (two against three) and the presence of a zoom function: the Reno 10x Zoom module includes three lenses for shooting with 10x zoom.