Oppo’s Bubble selfie display screams Qi2

The OPPO Bubble Screen is a smart second screen for your phone that can be attached and detached at will, connects wirelessly, and works either as a selfie screen or as a wireless camera remote. It’s the best version of this idea I’ve used yet, but it also serves as a depressing reminder that it might be better for Oppo and other Android OEMs to get on board with this idea. Chi2.

the bubble It’s kind of like a smaller – a lot smaller – version of Snap Insta360 or Dockcase Selfix Phone Case. It’s a small tablet, just 7mm thick and weighing 27.5g, with a 1.73-inch OLED circular touchscreen. It has its own 550mAh battery – though Oppo won’t say how long you expect that to last – and because it connects to your phone wirelessly, you don’t have to worry about a cable, although there’s a USB-C port for charging when you need to.

It’s clearly simple. You can access the phone’s camera to take photos or record video, including cycling, with some basic zoom options via the rear lenses. The screen is circular, so it’s not the ideal way to frame a rectangular photo, but it works well enough. Although it is a touchscreen, there is no tap to focus support.

Place the bubble on the back of your phone with the help of a magnetic holder and it becomes an easier way to take selfies with the rear lenses. But with a range of 33 feet, it can also function as a camera remote. Oppo includes a silicone case and a cute star-shaped accessory in the box, suggesting it thinks this could be a just as common use case as attaching the bubble wrap directly to the phone. Leaning towards a cute aesthetic, the usual wallpaper options are joined by a few digital ‘pets’ to choose from, though they only cycle through a few animations – there’s nothing interactive about them.

There are three screen brightness presets, a shortcut to lock the screen, and a single button that doubles as power and an optional camera shutter. Unlike Insta360 Snap, there is no option to light the ring. And because it taps directly into Oppo’s camera app, rather than mirroring your screen, you can’t use it with other photography apps like Instagram – but you also don’t risk accidentally mirroring private material on a second screen without realizing it.

The obvious downside of the bubble is that it is only for Oppo. It works with the company’s Reno 16 phones, which were also launched outside China today, along with a few other Reno and Find X phones. But you can’t use it with any other Android devices, which means it won’t be an option for most people. The upside to the locked design is that the Bubble can pair with a compatible phone in seconds and can access the camera even while the phone is locked.

Then there are the magnets. Oppo has yet to release a single smartphone with a Qi2 charging magnet inside, which means that to attach the bubble to the back of your phone, you’ll need to either buy a magnetic phone case or stick a magnetic ring (included with the bubble) directly onto the back of your phone. It’s frankly ridiculous that this magnetic accessory works exclusively for phones that don’t have any magnets, but that’s the mess that Android manufacturers create. Google asidethey have made their own stubborn refusal to adopt Qi2 so far.

It doesn’t help that the included sticky magnetic ring is too weak to do the job. The bubble wrap slides very easily, and I would definitely be worried about dropping it. The stronger magnets in Oppo’s official magnetic Reno 16 case work better, but you still can’t use the button without a second finger to hold the bubble on the other side – just pressing it is enough to push the entire device off its magnetic holder.

The Bubble isn’t perfect, and its €129 (about $150) price is noticeably higher than the Insta360 Snap’s $80. But portability and simplicity may make it worth the extra spending for Oppo phone owners, and I expect to see other manufacturers copy this idea before long. But can we get Qi2 with him next time please?

Photography by Dominic Preston/The Verge