Let’s be frank for a moment: 2018 is a rough year for gadget bloggers. Smartphones are by far the hottest category in consumer tech, and so it’s a key area of focus for most news sites that cover consumer electronics. But smartphones are incredibly boring right now. The
 iPhone X, which is a breath of fresh air for Apple fans after three
consecutive years of seeing Apple release iPhones with the same
design, but what about Android users? They get the iPhone X, too. They
 don’t get the real thing, of course. They get instead 
dozens of sad bootleg versions of the iPhone X. And if they don’t want a
widely available flagship phone that copies Apple’s iPhone X design,
they get the Galaxy S9 or Galaxy S9+. They’re fantastic phones, but
they have the same design as last year’s Galaxy S8 with absolutely no
 new noteworthy features. Yawn.
If a big part of your job was to cover all these boring new smartphones
 day in and day out, something like the newly announced Oppo Find X
 might excite you too. In fact, it’s a cool new concept that will probably
 excite any gadget fan who sees it. One popular clickbait YouTube
channel we won’t bother linking even went as far as to call it
“the smartphone that changes everything.”Concept is the key word here
 — the Oppo Find X is a neat idea that should have stayed an idea.
 It never should have been made, and there are a few obvious reasons
 why.
First, some quick background: What is Oppo? You might not have heard
of Oppo if you’re in the United States or Europe, but it’s a large
smartphone vendor based in China. The company makes a bunch of
 nice phones that aren’t terribly original, but they offer solid performance
 at good prices.
The Oppo Find X was just announced this week, and it’s the cream of
the crop for Oppo. It also features a unique design unlike anything we’ve
 seen before. Well, the overall design looks just like the Galaxy S9, so I
should rephrase that. It has two main design elements that are unlike
anything we’ve seen before.
First, it has a screen-to-body ratio of nearly 94%, which crushes popular
 widely available flagship phones like the iPhone X and Galaxy S9. The
 Find X has almost no bezel on the top and sides, and then an extremely
 narrow bezel at the bottom. Here’s a good image of the Oppo Find X
from the front:
You’ve probably noticed that
 there’s no front-facing
camera on the phone, and
 that brings us to its second
 unique feature.
Most of the time while you’re
using the Oppo Find X,
 there’s no visible camera on
 the front or the back of the
phone. There’s also no
 fingerprint sensor. When it
 comes time to unlock the
device or capture an image
or video, a mechanism at the
top of the phone slides up to
expose both the front- and
rear-facing cameras. Here’s
 a GIF from Verge —
watch the top of the phone:
Pretty cool, right? Cool, yes. A good idea? No, not at all.
There are two simple reasons Oppo’s Find X design is a horrible idea.
First, it’s going to break. If you drop the phone and it lands wrong, or if
you get too much dirt or dust in the area that houses the motor, that
mechanism is toast. Heck, even if you keep it clean and don’t drop it,
we’ll probably see a relatively high failure rate over time. Once it breaks,
 you won’t be able to use the cameras or even unlock the phone with
any biometric authentication until you pay to have it fixed.
What’s the big deal? I’ll just use a protective case to keep out the dirt and
 protect it from drops! That’s a great idea… except how are you going to
 find a case that actually protects the phone and yet doesn’t block the
 camera mechanism from opening?
The Oppo Find X will be priced at more than $1,000 when it’s released in
 the US and Europe this coming August. That’s a whole lot of money to
pay for an accident waiting to happen from a company with no real
 customer support network in either of those markets. My advice?
Admire it from afar.