Will under-display cameras come to consumers soon?

Oppo and Xiaomi beat Samsung to showing off smartphones with cameras hidden under the screen

Reading Time:3 minutes

Will under-display cameras come to consumers soon?

Published: 8:14pm, 5 Jun 2019Updated: 9:06am, 20 Sep 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

Everyone wants a bezel-free phone, but nobody can agree on what to do with the selfie camera.

Apple has the notch. Samsung has a hole in the screen for the camera. And Vivo hides the camera in a motorized pop-up module.

Now Oppo and Xiaomi are taking a huge step forward with what promises to be the most natural solution of all.

Oppo recently teased a new phone prototype in a video clip posted on Weibo and Twitter. The display appears to have no bezel around it or notch at the top. Yet when the camera app is launched, the screen displays what appears to be the ceiling viewed through an imperceptible front-facing camera. The person demonstrating the phone hovered a finger above the camera to prove the video’s authenticity.

The phone uses a ring of light to show the location of the front camera when it’s launched. (Picture: Oppo)

Hours later, Xiaomi executives released a video of their own phone prototype with an under-display camera. Xiaomi’s video, company co-founder Lin Bin made sure to mention on Weibo, was shot last month. The Xiaomi prototype appears to be a modified Mi 9, Xiaomi’s latest flagship.

It could be the answer to all of the weird selfie cameras we've seen recently. We’ve seen the teardrop notch, the pop-up selfie camera and the hole-punch display. There's also a smartphone with a second screen on the back just so you can use the rear cameras for selfies. One Xiaomi flagship uses a sliding screen design. And this peculiar design by Asus allows the rear camera to flip up 180 degrees to face the user.