News + Trends
Goodbye notch & co: the front camera moves under the display
by Jan Johannsen
Oppo puts the selfie cam under the screen
26.6.2019
Translation: machine translated
Oppo has done it. At least as a demo. The Chinese company has placed the selfie cam of a smartphone under the screen. However, the technology is not yet fully developed.
Building a smartphone's selfie camera under the screen is one of the last major hurdles in the development of the all-screen phone. At the MWC, formerly known as the Mobile World Congress, in Shanghai, Chinese manufacturer Oppo showed off a smartphone that does just that.
But: Even Oppo is critical of the implementation, even if the mobile world believes in the concept.
The picture quality suffers
How exactly the screen technology above the selfie cam works is not fully explained by Oppo. According to trade magazine The Verge, a special transparent material with a "redesigned pixel structure" is built into the display. This allows light to reach the camera through the screen. The camera's sensor is larger and the lens has a larger aperture than other selfie cams.
Source: Sanji Feng. Engadget
Although Oppo says that the image quality of the content displayed on the screen does not suffer from the camera, the Chinese edition of the tech magazine Engadget disagrees. The camera is visible under certain conditions, reports Engadget journalist Sanji Feng.
The software should fix it
Manufacturer Oppo admits that the selfie camera has a hard stand under the display and that the image quality of the camera suffers. The problems include the appearance of fog on the image, reflections and discolouration. Oppo wants to prevent this with software. Algorithms have been developed to compensate for the effects of the hardware. As a result, the picture quality should be "on a par with mainstream devices".
The device that will be shown at MWC does not yet have a name. It is purely a tech demo that shows the world "Yes, the hurdle is falling". Whether and when the technology will be installed in series production is still unknown.
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
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