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The world’s first smartphone with an under-screen camera is launching on September 1st

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While there have been a few prototypes and concept phones from the likes of Oppo, Xiaomi and Samsung, it seems none of them will win the race to release the first smartphone with an under-glass selfie camera. No, that honour will be taken by Chinese smartphone manufacturer, ZTE with their new ZTE Axon 20 5G.

No specific details have been mentioned about the specs of the under-glass selfie camera contained within the phone, although XDA-Developers says it’ll be 32-megapixel. ZTE says that it will be “the world’s first mass-produced 5G smartphone featuring under-display camera” and will launch on September 1st.

Visionox is ready to begin mass production of smartphone displays for under-screen cameras

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One of China’s largest OLED manufacturers, Visionox who provides panels for flagship smartphones like Xiaomi’s Mi 10 and Mi Note 10 has announced that they’re ready to begin mass production of smartphone displays compatible with under-screen cameras.

The concept has been around for a little while now. The first was unveiled in June last year, by Oppo. But it was mostly a proof-of-concept prototype showing off the idea rather than an issue-free device that was ready for prime time. It faced one big challenge, which Visionox claims to have beaten.

Samsung spending over $800 million to ramp up image sensor production

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Samsung is reportedly ramping up its image sensor production capabilities in a big way, although it’s doing it at the expense of RAM production – again. The process began in 2018 when Samsung converted its DRAM-producing Line 11 plant to make image sensors instead. At that time, they also announced their intention to convert Line 13 to do the same.

The conversion of Line 13 was expected towards the end of 2018, but it seems to have not happened yet. Business Korea reports that the plan is now going ahead, though, at a cost of 1 trillion Korean won (₩) or around US$815 million. Which, apparently, is actually cheaper than building a whole new factory.

Vivo’s X50 flagship smartphone expected to have a huge gimbal-like camera module

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Vivo’s next flagship smartphone will have a giant gimbal-style camera, a teaser posted to Chinese social media site, Weibo suggests. The gimbal-like smartphone camera technology was first shown off in March in Vivo’s Apex 2020 concept phone.

According to The Verge, Vivo was inspired by the way a chameleon’s eye works and its effectiveness and that this system 200% more effective than the types of optical image stabilisation found in most smartphone cameras today. If the implications in the teaser hold true, this will be its first implementation in a commercial device.

Huawei has patented a “liquid lens” camera module, possibly for the P50 series

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Liquid lens technology isn’t a new idea, but it hasn’t really taken off. We’ve seen a few gimmicky implementations over the years, but we’ve yet to really see anything implemented in a consumer device on a large scale. It looks, that Huawei might be looking to change that, though, as a new patent has recently been approved detailing a liquid lens smartphone camera module.

Gizmochina seems to think that it might debut on Huawei’s next series of P50 smartphones, but Samsung’s been working on similar technology since at least 2005 with a company that’s been exploring them for even longer, and it’s still not here. Huawei does tend to push things when it comes to the cameras in their smartphones.

OnePlus to remove 8 Pro’s controversial camera “x-ray” feature

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Users of OnePlus 8 Pro recently started to notice that the phone’s “color filter camera” can see through plastic and some fabrics. It caused some concerns because, in some instances, it can basically see through clothes. Because of that, OnePlus has now announced that they are temporarily disabling the feature.

Spy camera comes to phones with the OnePlus8: its camera sees through plastic and clothes

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OnePlus-s latest flagship phone, OnePlus 8 Pro, was announced only a month ago, promising pretty stunning camera performance. But it seems to be even cooler than we thought. While there weren’t too many details about the phone’s “color filter camera,” it turns out that it has a sort of X-ray vision. It can see through some plastic objects, and even through clothes!

Strike four: Huawei caught passing DSLR images as smartphone camera photos again

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Huawei found itself in the center of another scandal when they passed DSLR photos as they were shot with the company’s smartphone. If you think this sounds familiar, you’re right. Huawei did it before, not once, not twice – but three times. And I guess the third time wasn’t a charm so they did it again for the fourth time.

iFixit tore down the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra to see its “crazy” cameras

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The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra is an impressive smartphone, with an impressive $1,399 price tag to match. It has an interesting camera assembly on the rear, with three cameras at 12, 48 and 108-megapixels, as well as a Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensor for depth-sensing.

iFixit have managed to get their hands on one and as they often do, they decided to tear it open to see how it all comes together inside. As one would expect from a Samsung device, it’s not the easiest to get into. iFixit mentions using some pretty hefty tools to crack it open, making some comparisons to Samsung’s Note 10 Plus 5G in terms of internal similarity.

The camera in Vivo’s new APEX concept smartphone features a built-in “gimbal”

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It’s amazing how small they can make tech these days. Vivo has unveiled its latest update on the APEX concept line. Famous for showing off some pretty insane concepts for future phones, many of their predictions have come true. Popup selfie cameras, under-screen fingerprint readers, and almost completely button-and-bezel-free designs.

In Vivo’s latest concept device, the front-camera has come back, sitting underneath the display, but the main rear-camera also sees a pretty significant new feature. Taking optical image stabilisation (OIS) to the next level, they’ve essentially built it into a gimbal.

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