Oppo’s foldable phone Find N using Samsung Display’s OLED panel

Oppo’s first foldable phone Find N which will be unveiled on Wednesday will use Samsung Display’s foldable OLED panel, TheElec has learned.

The South Korean display panel maker has supplied the 7.1-inch folding OLED panel to the Chinese smartphone maker, sources said.

The external 5.45-inch flat OLED panel used on Find N was provided by BOE, they said.

Samsung Display used ultra-thin glass, which it calls UTG, as the cover window for the folding OLED panel it provided, they added.

Chinese smartphone makers had used polyimide film instead of glass for their foldable phones so far since Huawei launched the Mate X in 2019.

Huawei Mate X2 and Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold that launched during the first half of this year had also used transparent polyimide film.

Samsung first adopted UTG with the Galaxy Z Flip that launched last year.

The folding OLED panel on Oppo Find N supports a 120Hz variable refresh rate thanks to the application of low-temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) thin-film transistor (TFT).

Oppo is the first company to use LTPO TFT in its folding phone among Chinese companies.

Samsung was the first to adopt the technology on its folding phone.

Meanwhile, other Chinese companies are collaborating with Samsung Display for the next foldable phones.

Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold 2 will be using Samsung Display’s 8.01-inch OLED panel with UTG as well as CSOT’s 6.52-inch panel for the external screen.

Xiaomi had used CSOT’s panels for both the folding panel and the external panel on its Mi Mix Fold that launched earlier this year.

Vivo will also be using both Samsung Display and BOE, for the inner folding panel and external panel, respectively, for its foldable phone.

Huawei had considered procuring folding OLED panels from Samsung Display but this plan was scrapped during the first half of the year.

It had used BOE for both Mate X and Mate X2. Honor is also planning to use BOE for its foldable phone.