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Chinese smartphone maker Vivo has unveiled a new concept smartphone called the APEX FullView, and the company claims that its invention will set the tone for the design language employed by its future smartphones. The Vivo APEX FullView rethinks various aspects of today’s mobile technology including the front-facing camera, all while boasting an unprecedented screen-to-body ratio. Furthermore, like the Vivo X20 Plus UD unveiled earlier this year at CES, the concept device adopts an in-display fingerprint scanner which eliminates the need for embedding this type of technology into a physical button.
The quest for thinner bezels is pushing Vivo toward a new design language, and the APEX FullView concept smartphone represents the company’s next step in that direction. According to the manufacturer, the concept phone has the thinnest side and top bezels in the industry yet, clocking in at 1.8mm. The lower bezel is slightly thicker measuring 4.3mm, and in overall, the device reaches a screen-to-body ratio of nearly 98-percent. This is in part thanks to the adoption of a flexible OLED display and the way the device would embed internal microchips directly onto the flexible circuit board. It’s also interesting to note that the device doesn’t have actual physical speakers but instead relies on what the OEM calls Screen SoundCasting Technology which can apparently transform the entire FullView display into a speaker. The way it works is by sending vibrations through the display, and this also contributes to thinner bezels, as well as lower power requirements, according to the OEM. The “speaker” would be powered by a new setup integrating a DAC and three amplifiers, and in turn, this would reduce the space requirements for the circuit board by nearly 60-percent compared to the Vivo Xplay 6. Theoretically, this can allow Vivo to improve other aspects of the device including its battery capacity while still providing better cooling.
One of the more unique features of the Vivo APEX FullView is the front-facing camera which doesn’t actually reside on the front panel but instead rises from the top bezel of the device whenever it’s needed, revealing an 8-megapixel shooter coupled with proximity and light sensor. Vivo didn’t reveal any availability details and at the end of the day, because this is a concept phone, it remains to be seen if all of these interesting ideas will eventually be translated into a commercial device.
