Chinese smartphone manufacturer OPPO on Wednesday unveiled the world's first under-screen camera (USC) phone at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2019 event in Shanghai, China.
By integrating the front camera and the screen, under-screen camera solution provides users with a complete view, an immersive screen and an integrated body.
The latest under-screen camera solution features a customized camera module that captures more light; zoning control is employed on the screen, together with "highly-transparent" material that enhances transmittance of light through the screen, the company said in a statement.
According to The Verge, Oppo did acknowledge such kind of setup will inherently reduce photo image quality, with significant problems like haze, glare, and colour cast needing to be overcome. Oppo is using some algorithms to correct these, but we would only be able to judge its efficacy when Oppo employs the technology commercially.
"OPPO is committed to product and technology innovation that creates a more immersive and comprehensive experience for users," said Qiao Jiadong, Product Manager at OPPO.
"USC and MeshTalk are part of OPPO's vision for the future that we hope will promote the industry's technological evolution from zero to one. We also view our technological innovation as a way to expand the imagination while opening up a wide range of application scenarios," Jiadong added.
The company also announced MeshTalk technology which is a proprietary decentralized communication technology that enables the transmission of texts, voice messages and real-time voice calls between OPPO devices within a range of three kilometres without cellular networks, WiFi or Bluetooth.
We can expect a commercially available smartphone using the USC from Oppo sooner than later. Oppo often shows off core technology at trade shows in prototypes before implementing it on a commercial product. The periscope zoom lens present in the Oppo Reno 10x Zoom Edition is an example.
