Oppo stretches the limits of smartphone display with their new 'waterfall screen' display.

Image courtesy Oppo

There has been a series of new smartphone designs for the last few years, with various tech giants trying to outdo each other, with some inventing new smartphone designed while others trying to come up with an alternative or try and catch up fast.
Recent frontiers in phone design have been largely focused on the display, with an attempt to either give us a full screen display with zero bezels or fully utilize flexible displays and come up with foldable phones.
In order to achieve as much display as possible while maintaining the phone size, various phone manufacturers have tried different approaches, according to how far their engineering capabilities could take them.
The biggest challenge in achieving a full screen display has been the selfie camera, whichbis now a must have smartphone spec, the earpiece and the infra red sensors.
While many manufacturers decided to go for a notch to house these components, Samsung decided to go for a more advanced hole-punch display as a show of their might.
After making a name for itself in it's home country, Oppo have decided to take their might internationally, and hence have decided to join the stiff smartphone race.
And they look like they mean business, especially after it joined the European market.
Not wanting to be left behind or termed a "copycat", Oppo have proved themselves more than once that they can greatly influence the smartphone designed just like how Apple and Samsung have been doing for quite sometime now.
Oppo have their for had a number of 'firsts', including their water drop notch, the ultra fast charging VOOC, pop up cameras, all screen display and lately the under screen camera plus the Mesh talk technology among others.
Well, Oppo is at it again, with their new display design known as the 'Waterfall' display.
Looks like they love water, and for a good reason.
While the water drop made the notch look like a beautiful single water drop, the waterfall makes the screen slide beautifully in its edges, totally eliminating the side bezels.

While releasing the new innovation over their Twitter handle, Oppo said:

Taking borderless smartphone innovation to the new heights,we're thrilled to give you a first look at " waterfall screen " technology.

 Well known for their 'camera centric' phones, oppo announced it's new camera technology, in 2017 at Mobile World Congress.
Known as the 5x dual camera zoom, they managed to intelligently introduce distant zoom to smartphones while maintaining the slim phone design.
Later they have gone ahead to push their zooming capabilities up to 10 x with an inbuilt periscope zooming system.
In order to proof that these were not just a tease, Oppo released their first 10 x zoom phone, the Reno 10x zoom.
While many phone manufacturers were struggling with the front camera and earpiece in order to achieve a bezel less full screen display, Oppo decided to take a whole new approach with the pop up camera.
The night of this is seen in the find x which feature a sliding mechanism that slides out the whole front of the phone with both the rear and front cameras.
Oppo calls this panoramic arc screen, which apart from the sliding camera mechanism also has a curved screen display.
With the new waterfall screen display, Oppo have pushed the curved edges further up to 88 degrees, giving you a full screen when the phone is viewed from the front.
Noticing the slight oddness of the sliding camera technology, which makes the phone prone to water and dust, Oppo are trying to change their focus.
That is why during this year's Mobile World Congress they announced their in-display camera display.
Though it doesn't look better than Samsung's pin-hole camera, it is yet to be tasted in relf life application.
Will the waterfall screen display succeed or fail?
When it comes to curved displays, Samsung have been once there, and Oppo could just be going through a path that has yielded nothing but disappointment.
Ask anyone who has had a curved display phone, especially the Galaxy S8, and will tell you that going for such is a totally bad idea.
Curved displays have a number of challenges wich include:

• Durability. Curved displays are quite slippery, especially when combined with a glass back. In case the phone slips out of your grip and lands on a hard surface, then you can just imagine how it will come out.
• Difficulty in holding the phone without accidentally touching the edge and initiating unwanted commands.
• Difficult to find a screen protector or good phone case.
• Quite expensive to repair a damaged curved display as compared to flat screen

There's a high probability that before the end of the year Oppo could release their flagship device, and whether it will feature all these new designs Oppo have been teasing about; we're yet to see.
As for now, the waterfall inspired display remains just an idea, among the many others.
And its ultimate test will be when it can face off with other brands and ideas in real life.
Related:

• Safaricom bonga points phones 2019