Periscope cameras are set to become "the next big thing" in smartphone photography, but they are not exactly new - they've been around for years actually. The history of optical zoom on mobile goes way back. Keep in mind that mobile phones have had cameras on them only since the year 2000. Not long after that in 2004 the Sharp 902 came around. Vodafone was just launching its 3G network in the UK and it claimed that this is the first phone with a 2MP camera in Europe. Even more interesting, it featured 2x optical zoom. Better yet, it did the zoom with a single camera instead of switching...
Source: https://www.gsmarena.com/counterclockwise_periscope_cameras_are_old_news_optical_zoom_dates_back_to_2004-news-36053.php
