China’s Oppo doubles down on foldable smartphones as potential Apple entry looms
Oppo’s Find N6 debuts with ‘virtually’ crease-free screen amid growing buzz over a foldable iPhone that is expected to debut this year
Find N6, launched globally on Tuesday, featured upgraded hinge technology designed to make the crease on the foldable screen “virtually imperceptible”, according to the company.
“While foldables offer the advantage of a larger display, the crease has remained one of the primary concerns for users,” said Pete Lau, senior vice-president and chief product officer at Oppo. “It’s a challenge Oppo has sought to solve ever since the original Find N.”
The prices of the new handset range from 9,999 yuan (US$1,450) to 11,999 yuan, a 1,000 yuan increase compared with the previous Find N5 model released in February last year.
“You may all know that memory is more expensive than gold now,” Lau said at the launch event at Oppo’s Binhai Bay campus in Dongguan.
The handset has a thickness of just 8.93mm (0.35 inches) when folded and weighs 225 grams (7.9 ounces). It runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 mobile platform, supporting artificial intelligence capabilities and multitasking performance.
Oppo’s latest push into the premium segment comes as smartphone makers grapple with surging component costs amid a memory shortage. The memory crunch has threatened to squeeze profit margins and forced companies to raise prices.