Front cameras are part of every smartphone next to the display. A smartphone without a front camera would hardly sell today. Since the front camera takes up space at the same time, solutions are sought to accommodate it as discreetly as possible. Oppo and Xiaomi now present a possible solution.
The front camera has been considered a necessary disturbance factor since the trend towards larger and larger displays has become more and more popular. It takes up a lot of space that could be used much better. Inventive smartphone manufacturers have come up with the so-called Notch and extendable cameras to solve this problem. Oppo and Xiaomi now go one step further and make the front camera disappear under the display.
Oppo first presented a prototype of such a smartphone. Xiaomi followed shortly afterwards. The major advantage of these smartphones is that there is no need to place a camera lens anywhere on the front. This means that even more space can be used for the display.
However, the camera under the display also has weaknesses. For example, the display will probably not be able to show any information at the camera position if good image quality is to be guaranteed. That would take away the advantage. At the same time, even Oppo admits that the camera mounted under the display is inferior to conventional front cameras in terms of quality.
It is unclear whether the prototypes of the two manufacturers will go into series production or whether the camera under the display will be filed further. It is also unclear whether other manufacturers are also working on such a technology.
