While it likely won’t be the best phone of the year, Oppo’s Find X is an early contender for the most fascinating phone of the year thanks to its pop-up camera module, which quickly raises the front and rear cameras whenever they need to be activated. It seems to work remarkably well for a first-generation product. And now a device teardown from Zol shows how Oppo got the feature working.
Most of the work appears to be done by an actuator in the middle of the phone that lifts and lowers the camera notch. To either side of the actuator are cables, attaching the moving tech to the main board of the phone. And then all the way out to either edge are rails and a material that seems to cushion the hardware as it quickly shoots upward.
Here’s the GIF you all came for:
I’m not convinced that smartphones with moving parts are going to catch on. But the past few months suggest that we’re likely to see more in the near future. Just two weeks ago, we got a teardown showing the inner workings of the other smartphone with a pop-up camera, Vivo’s Nex S.
The Find X is supposed to launch widely in August, but specific availability information has yet to be announced.