Oppo Teases World’s Slimmest Smartphone

A new smartphone from China-based Oppo hopes to claim the title of the world’s thinnest smartphone. The race to slim was first waged between Apple and Samsung with the debut of the iPhone 4. Since then, Motorola had released the impeccably thin Droid RAZR–also known as the Motorola RAZR internationally, and the newcomer Huawei came in and swooped up the title for its Huawei Ascend P1 S, which debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year. In a few short months, it looks like Oppo is hoping to change things up and its smartphone is said to be 0.03 mm slimmer than the Ascend P1 S.

Right now, the teaser image, which is posted on Engadget, doesn’t reveal much information about the device. However, based on the hardware, it appears that Oppo’s offering looks similar to a flattened down Apple iPhone with a large display on the front, a rear panel which may also be glass, and a large metal band surrounding the edge of the device similar to Apple’s iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. The metal band design around the side edge of a phone has also been employed by Research in Motion in the past with the BlackBerry Bold 9900 series as well.

The three buttons that you’re seeing on the side of the device are buttons for some sort of dock. The button’s circular shape is also reminiscent of the iPhone’s circular volume up and down buttons.

The phone will run on Google’s Android operating system and the front touchscreen will house three capacitive Android navigation keys. It’s unclear which version of the Android OS this device will run and what the processor powering the device will use. Also, it’s unclear if this phone will be available in markets outside of China.