News > Phones Oppo Announces Foldable Flagship Smartphone The Find N releases next week By Lawrence Bonk Lawrence Bonk News Reporter Florida State University Lawrence Bonk is a tech news reporter for Lifewire, specializing in gaming, AI, VR, and consumer tech, including iOS, macOS, wearables, and more. lifewire's editorial guidelines Published on December 9, 2021 01:29PM EST Fact checked by Jerri Ledford Fact checked by Jerri Ledford Western Kentucky University Gulf Coast Community College Jerri L. Ledford has been writing, editing, and fact-checking tech stories since 1994. Her work has appeared in Computerworld, PC Magazine, Information Today, and many others. lifewire's fact checking process Tweet Share Email Tweet Share Email Phones Mobile Phones Internet & Security Computers & Tablets Smart Life Home Theater & Entertainment Software & Apps Social Media Streaming Gaming It looks like Samsung is about to have some legitimate competition in the folding smartphone space. Chinese smartphone manufacturer Oppo just announced their own foldable flagship smartphone, uniquely named the Find N, as announced by chief product officer Pete Lau in a company blog post. Oppo Specs and official details are scant, but we won’t have to wait long to find out, as the folding smartphone releases on December 15. This date coincides with the second day of Oppo’s annual Inno Day event. As for form factor, the company tweeted a short video showing the phone in action. The folding mechanism looks similar to Samsung’s Z Fold devices, with a large internal folding screen combined with a smaller exterior screen that can be used like a regular smartphone. However, according to the video, this outer screen looks to have a similar aspect ratio to a traditional smartphone, unlike the Fold 3’s tall and thin external screen. "For a foldable smartphone, both the closed-screen and open-screen experience should be equally simple to use," Lau wrote. "Then, on top of that, we should create a groundbreaking efficient experience that a traditional smartphone cannot provide." To that end, the Find N has been in development since 2018 and has gone through six prototypes. Oppo showed off one of these prototypes back in 2019, so this phone has been a long time coming. Oppo has been extraordinarily busy as of late. Just yesterday, it teased a smartphone with a retro-styled retractable camera lens. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Email Address Sign up There was an error. Please try again. You're in! Thanks for signing up. There was an error. Please try again. Thank you for signing up! Tell us why! Other Not enough details Hard to understand Submit