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Several images from OPPO’s upcoming smartphone offering, called the OPPO Reno, were recently posted on the Chinese social media website, Weibo. These images feature replicas of popular destinations around the world, which include Mt. Rushmore, the Sphinx, and St. Peter’s Basilica, and these photographs include the images captured from the handset’s 48-megapixel main camera, while it also shows the phone incredible zoom capability.
Overlaid on the pictures from the primary shooter are images from the zoom camera, and these samples show how the zoom camera retains quite a bit of detail despite the distance between the subject of the image and the smartphone.
On the other hand, OPPO’s VP Brian Shen shared another set of images that were captured using the handset’s main camera while using pixel binning, a technique that combines information captured by four adjacent pixels to improve the sensitivity of the camera. While this technique results in better images in low-light conditions, it also effectively reduces the resolution of the photographs captured by the camera. For example, with pixel binning, the pictures taken by OPPO’s upcoming smartphone offering will only have a resolution of 12-megapixels, rather than the 48-megapixels that the main camera is capable of saving.
Recently, an executive from OPPO provided details about the design of an upcoming smartphone offering from the Chinese tech firm, and previous rumors also shared information about the specifications of the handset. The OPPO Reno will likely feature the Snapdragon 855 chipset, the current flagship SoC offering of Qualcomm, and it may have a display larger than 6.4 inches and contain at least 6GB of RAM. Moreover, recent reports state that the device will include a 4,065mAh battery, and it will likely support OPPO’s proprietary fast charging technology, called VOOC. The handset will also feature a triple-rear camera setup.
OPPO announced 10x optical zoom capability of its cameras during MWC 2019, and this feature will utilize a periscope-style system. When you use the smartphone’s zoom camera, you will first see an image with an ultrawide aspect, and as the person zooms in to the subject of their photograph, the perspective will change to a telephoto one.
Despite the presence of an optical zoom setup, the imaging module will still feature optical image stabilization, which reduces the motion blur captured by the cameras. Even though OPPO only recently unveiled its 10x optical zoom technology, the company has been working on lossless zoom features for several years already, with the handset maker demonstrating its 5x optical zoom functionality back in 2017.
Interestingly enough, an upcoming flagship smartphone from Huawei, the Huawei P30 Pro, will likely feature a very similar camera technology, based on the hints previously provided by Huawei’s executives.
As competition intensifies between device makers, camera technology is one of the essential features that smartphone manufacturers focus on to make their products stand out. The provided camera samples do show really impressive results from OPPO Reno’s camera, presuming these are camera samples from that phone, of course. The device is expected to be announced at the beginning of April, so stay tuned.
