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Zhou Yibao, the leader of OPPO's foldable product line, spends his days studying a range of products, from competitors’ smartphones to robot vacuums, to understand their design and innermost workings.  “Some say that a great product is a work of art. To me, it’s the right combination of human needs and technology,” says the former software engineer who has worked in OPPO for a decade.  To master the intersection of science, art and desire, his team often buys products and takes them apart to analyse them. They have gone as far as to dismantle an electric car entirely.  This is the same intense approach his team has taken to building OPPO’s foldable phones, now the flagship category and key to the company’s future as a premium brand.  In October, OPPO launched its third generation of foldable smartphones, the and Find N3 Flip models. Both models have become instant hits in key markets like Singapore as OPPO has blended together .   The OPPO Find N3’s internal screen unfolds to a massive 7.8 inches, boasting a 120Hz refresh rate, 2800 nits of brightness, and an extremely fine resolution of 425 pixels per inch. At its core is the latest OPPO Flexion Hinge, capable of withstanding 1 million folds, which also plays a key role in minimizing the screen crease of the foldable display. The Find N3 is also the first in their foldable lineup to feature what OPPO terms a “pro-grade” imaging system, equipped with a trio of high-end cameras and advanced algorithms. Despite packing in all this goodness, the Find N3 weighs just 239 grams, making it lighter than the flagship models of conventional phones.    Indeed, is the new arms race between the major phone brands.  But what does it take to make a winning foldable? Zhou would know.  Zhou shared that from 2018 to 2021, OPPO iterated six generations of folding mechanisms, accumulating 125 patents in the process. In December 2021, their first foldable (Find N) was officially launched, starting at 7,699 yuan, making it the cheapest horizontal folding screen phone at the time. The biggest focus then, says Zhou, was making the crease less obvious, but users demanded perfection.  He says: “We made the screen crease on the Find N as shallow as possible. After its launch and selling tens of thousands of units, we asked users for feedback. They said the phone was still too heavy at 275 grams.” “In fact, many high-net-worth users like golfers said they were afraid to carry a heavy phone in case their pants slipped down. It may sound funny but we took the feedback seriously. Our research and development team worked hard to reduce the weight by 50 grams, which was challenging given that the device is already small.” "We sought out materials from other industries, such as the military or other high-tech industries, and then tested the materials to determine if they could be used in mobile phones. We finally settled on using carbon fibre to shave off the grams.” After reducing the weight and shrinking the Find N3’s thickness to 5.8mm, OPPO made sure the phone would continue to perform in extreme weather conditions. “Our phones undergo over a hundred tests,” says Zhou. “One is the 85/85 test which involves placing the phone in an environment of 85 degrees Celsius and 85% humidity, then continuously charging and discharging for 48 or 72 hours.”  “We also put the phone in a drum similar to a washing machine and spin the drum up to 100,000 times.”  Zhou says that OPPO subjects their phones to extreme testing because you would never know where the phone may need to be used.  “You don't know where a phone will be taken. It might go underwater, to the desert, or even into space. It might be exposed to various unpredictable environments, like skiing in snowy conditions or in the extreme heat at the equator,” he says.  Finally, OPPO set out to make the best camera system on any phone.  Says Zhou: “With the first generation of the Find N foldable, some users told us that the camera quality was not as good as their previous flagship phones. This was painful to hear but we went to work.”  The Find N3 boasts a revolutionary Stacked Pixel Architecture that takes in 140% more light, resulting in greater resolving detail and vibrant colors.  Its three cameras – the 48MP Ultra-Wide-Angle, the 48MP Ultra-Sensing Wide-Angle, the 64MP Ultra-Sensing Periscope Telephoto – have wide apertures that allow sharp photos to be taken even in very dark scenes. They also cover the most popular focal lengths that professional photographers use – 14mm, 24mm and 70mm – for landscapes and portraiture.  And to enable anyone to create works of art on the go, OPPO has partnered with legendary camera brand Hasselblad to empower users with advanced imaging algorithms.  Thanks to the onboard computational photography, you can take striking portraits with gently blurred backgrounds or capture landscapes in the exquisite 65:24 mural-like aspect ratio.    is paying off.  Since launch, the OPPO Find N3 has sold five times the volume of their previous flagship phone – the OPPO Find X5 (non-foldable).  In the span of three years, OPPO has successfully gone from mainstream to premium status. Before 2021, OPPO had no presence in the price band above $1,700. Today, the OPPO Find N3 is going for a recommended price of $2,399 and is now the 2nd best-selling foldable phone brand in Singapore. Yet, Zhou remains humble: “We will continue to study new products to uncover the secrets of their success. There's still much we aspire to achieve with foldable phones.” Brought to you by