The slowing smartphone market has been blamed for an amazing explosion in the variety of features and designs of new devices, as companies struggle to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Into this Cambrian Explosion arrives Oppo with two new design patents published on the 29th January 2019, for some rather bizarre devices.

The craziest is a device with a pop-up, not camera, but screen.

Oppo imagines the secondary screen could be used to control content on the larger screen, like video transport controls or controls for playing games.

Possibly somewhat less senseless is a device which is a horizontal slider, not with a keyboard but with a screen, which may nevertheless be used for a virtual keyboard. Of course, the slider screen does offer the ability to have a large screen in a smaller form factor, similar to a folding device, but somewhat less technically complicated.

Do our readers agree that some-one at Oppo has been microdosing a bit too much? Let us know below.

Via Letsgodigital.com