OPPO today at MWC unveiled its latest mobile camera technology breakthrough: 5X Precision Optical Zoom. As the name suggests, OPPO has managed to develop a camera module that offers 5x optical zoom on a phone.

The company has managed to achieve this in a rather interesting way. While the company does use two image sensors, the secondary telephoto lens is actually hidden inside the primary camera module itself. The telephoto lens recieves light through a prism that is located perpendicular to the primary wide-angle lens. By refreacting light this way and using some clever softawre algorithms, OPPO is able to offer 5x optical zoom on a mobile smartphone camera sensor.

Even better, OPPO says that its newest optical image stabilisation technology is up to 40 percent more efficient than exisitng such OIS tech and offers precise increment controls of 0.0025 degrees while zooming in.

Impressively, despite packing so many modules, the camera sensor is only 5.7mm thick. The company worked with Corephotonics, a camera technology vendor, to develop the technology in about a year.

OPPO’s 5X Precision Optical Zoom technology sure does sound impressive on paper, but its better to reserve one’s thoughts and judgements on how impressive the technology is once we actually see it in action on a smartphone. This brings us to the disappointing part of today’s announcement from OPPO; the company did not announce any timeframe as to when it will start using this technology on its smartphones.