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OPPO has released a brand new promotional clip spotted on social media and YouTube reminding fans of the brand and curious smartphone enthusiasts that its new under display camera technology will be demonstrated at this year’s MWC Shanghai 2019 on June 26.
The clip itself runs at around 15 to 16-seconds and provides a brief history of directions OPPO — and others — have taken with their front-facing camera technology over the past couple of years. That includes the previously used in-bezel design language that’s been relatively standard in smartphones for quite some time and then navigates past spinning top-mounted mechanisms and a couple of varieties of notches.
That’s before landing on the upcoming hidden selfie-snapper. Taking up just a second or two at the end, that camera is shown hidden completely away under the display, with the contents displayed shown over the top of the camera when it isn’t in use. A white light ring appears around the sensor briefly to show users where that’s been placed.
The entire device is shown in the clip and, in terms of comparable size, the smartphone doesn’t appear too different from OPPO’s recently launched OPPO Reno. In fact, it appears to be almost identical with regard to the screen-to-body ratio and design language with the sole exception centering around the camera. The camera can’t be seen at all in the clip except for the white ring that appears around it.
The video ends with the tag line “More Than the Seen.”
A long time coming
The technology that’s set to be showcased at this year’s event was actually first shown earlier this month in yet another clip shared to Twitter by the Chinese OEM. Conversely, that’s going to be displayed in a ‘prototype’ device so the fact that it resembles an OPPO Reno may not be a coincidence at all. It may simply be built around that device as a way for OPPO to quickly bring its own tech to the forefront.
That’s because this isn’t the first time this type of technology has been showcased or hinted at by some of OPPO’s biggest competition both in the region and elsewhere.
The most obvious example of an in-display camera that will give OPPO a run for its money is the Xiaomi technology that was shown around the same time at the beginning of June. That was also touted on social media. Samsung and others have already begun making headway in that direction with the tech too, beginning with Samsung’s Infinity O display technology, which steps in that direction by placing the camera or cameras within a punch hole cutout on the display.
Samsung and others have been exploring how to make the camera work without reducing usable display space too.
Plausible limitations?
The device that’s being touted by OPPO will be a prototype and there haven’t been any details provided with regard to the quality of shots taken with the hardware just yet, as a result. That earlier tech demo from the Chinese tech giant could provide at least some insight into how the company is, for the time being, overcoming limitations.
To begin with, the initial video of the feature actually showed the camera as it is displayed when the Camera app is in use in its current iteration. It was effectively hidden away within a black bar above the rest of the UI, which could indicate that the camera requires a lot of dead pixels around itself in order to function without interference from the display’s light output.
If that’s the case, this may be among the only cameras released in Android segment that can’t use third-party apps for snapping photos.
Whether or not that’s going to be something potential users need to be prepared for remains to be seen but the company will undoubtedly reveal a lot more in just a couple of days.