OPPO unveils smartphone camera with 5x lossless zoom

OPPO today made use of its Mobile World Congress keynote to unveil new camera technology for lossless zoom. Dubbed 5x, the tech makes use of a dual lens configuration inspired by a submarine periscope, and OPPO says it can deliver five times magnification without any loss in quality. 

In order to achieve this, the OPPO has paired a wide-angle lens with a telephoto lens to - in effect - create 3x optical zoom. This is then augmented with "propriety image fusion technology" and optical image stabilisation on the telephoto lens (rather than the wide-angle lens, as is more common) to create what OPPO says is 5x zoom without image degradation. 

Notably, the entire camera enclosure is just 5.7mm thick. In order to slim down the module, OPPO shifted the angle of the telephoto by 90 degrees, allowing a deeper zoom without compromising a phone's build. A periscope-style prism then directs the the path of light entering the camera by 90 degrees, and sends and sends the image through the telephoto lens when the user zooms in on a subject or object.

OPPO has yet to announce a device featuring its 5x camera technology, but had a prototype device available at its Mobile World Congress. We had a brief hands on with one of the prototypes, and despite not being a final product, the zooming process worked smoothly. While images were sharp, it was hard to judge overall quality on the phone's display.  

OPPO says it spent over 380 days developing the technology, and filed more than 50 patent applications in the process. 

OPPO Australia contributed funding toward WhistleOut's trip to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress

Alex Choros

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Alex Choros is the Managing Editor of WhistleOut Australia and an award-winning journalist. He's been writing about consumer technology for over a decade and is an expert on the Australian telco sector, to the point where he knows far too many phone and internet plans by heart. In addition to leading the WhistleOut editorial team, Alex is responsible for ruining the office Sonos with his troubled taste in music.

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