How will the shape of mobile phones change in four years?
For most consumers, since the release of iPhone X in 20 17, Apple has started to update its products like toothpaste, especially the front Face ID "bangs" design. Even though many people spit, it hasn't changed since the release of iPhone 1 1 and iPhone 12.
However, when we focus on the Android camp, we will find that in the past four years, mobile phone manufacturers have not only made the screen bigger step by step, but also planned to erase the front camera together and expand to the real full-screen form. In this process, the technology of off-screen camera is getting closer and closer to us.
At the Mobile World Congress in 20 19, OPPO demonstrated the concept technology of off-screen camera for the first time. By hiding the camera on the front of the mobile phone under the screen, the true full-screen modeling of the front of the mobile phone is realized.
Since then, mobile phone manufacturers have launched a technical impact in this field, including Huawei, ZTE, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, Samsung and other domestic and foreign mobile phone manufacturers have put forward different patented technologies. At the same time, supply chain enterprises such as Visionox, BOE and Huaxing Optoelectronic have also started research and development.
After more than two years, this technology has now reached a crossroads. In the wave of new machines in July and August, ZTE, Xiaomi, OPPO, Samsung and other manufacturers will not only bring mobile phones with off-screen cameras, but also further widen the design differences between Apple and Android phones. But why do mobile phone manufacturers have a soft spot for this technology? Are users willing to pay for this? Can domestic manufacturers catch up with Apple with this technology?
Perhaps many users still remember that after the release of iPhone X in the autumn of 20 17, many mobile phone manufacturers began to follow Apple's "Liu Hai" design. Whether it was the high-end flagship at that time or the entry-level mobile phone at that time, it was a trend for mobile phones to hit Apple's face with bangs.
But in fact, at that time, most of the imitations of Android manufacturers wanted Apple modeling, but they could not learn Apple's inner spirit. The reason is that in order to put the front camera, infrared lens, floodlight sensor, dot matrix projector and other components into the mobile phone, Apple adopted the bangs design, while most Android manufacturers just put the front camera and ambient light sensor in this bangs area. Compared with Apple, Android manufacturers only imitate for the sake of imitation, and even because they are too exaggerated, they are vomited by users.
This situation soon began to change in the second half of 20 18. Android manufacturers began to try various schemes to highlight their designs, and gradually abandoned Liu Hai.
(OPPO and vivo adopt pop-up design to realize full screen of mobile phone)
For example, there were a series of designs on the market at that time, such as pop-up camera, slide camera, front perforated screen, front and rear dual screen and so on. Behind the magic of manufacturers is actually the "wealth password" they discovered: instead of learning the essence from Apple, it is better to embark on the road of real full screen. For example, OPPO Find X and vivo NEX phones released in the same month each adopt different pop-up camera schemes to realize the design of full screen on the front of mobile phones. Xiaomi and Glory adopted a sliding design to hide the front camera.
The market has also given good feedback and comments on full-screen mobile phones. As one of the few domestic mobile phones that hit the price of 5,000 yuan at that time, Find X was difficult to sell for the first time, and it reached 300,000 units two months after its release, becoming the third place in the sales list of mobile phones with a price of more than 4,000 yuan at that time, second only to Apple and higher than Huawei P20 Pro. The NEX S mobile phone launched by vivo has also entered the sixth place in the sales list, which shows that users recognize the true full-screen mobile phone.
However, both pop-up cameras and slide cameras have some inherent defects. Due to the addition of mechanical structure, these mobile phones can not achieve a long enough service life, nor can they be waterproof. From the intuitive perception of users, these mobile phones are heavier than ordinary mobile phones, and it is difficult to upgrade through technology.
Therefore, although the pop-up camera has been recognized by many consumers, this solution to achieve full screen has been gradually abandoned by manufacturers because there are many things to compromise, but manufacturers have also begun to look for other alternatives to achieve full screen. Off-screen camera technology is one of the most likely methods for manufacturers to find in the future.
In principle, off-screen photography technology has already entered everyone's life. Nowadays, the "photoelectric" off-screen fingerprint technology adopted by many Android phones is to put the camera at the bottom of the screen. When the user's fingerprint unlocks the mobile phone, the screen will emit strong light to illuminate the fingerprint, and then the camera on the screen will shoot the pattern reflected by the fingerprint. After comparing the fingerprint information, you can unlock the phone.
However, after the off-screen fingerprint technology is mature, the off-screen camera technology has not been mass-produced. The main reason is that the photographer's fingers and face have different requirements for image quality. The photographer's fingers take black-and-white images, and the quality requirements are not high. As a daily self-timer, the front lens of mobile phone should not only take pictures normally, but also have hard indicators for light and camera resolution, so there are more problems to be solved.
The first is the problem of light transmission. When the camera is placed under the screen, the screen becomes a natural "hood", just like a layer of tulle, which will naturally affect the selfie effect. This is the first difficulty faced by various manufacturers.
Lu, vice president of Xiaomi, mentioned earlier: "At present, the screen PPI is around 400. At this level, the light transmittance in the camera is very low, which seriously affects the photographing effect. If the PPI is reduced and the pass rate is improved, there will be a big gap between the PPI in the display area and the whole screen, resulting in color blocks in the display area. "
For example, the Axon 20 released by ZTE in 2020 is the earliest mass-produced mobile phone with off-screen camera technology, which adopts the scheme of reducing pixels per inch and the number of pixels in the camera area. However, its off-screen camera does not perform well when users take selfies, and there are usually problems of insufficient brightness and glare. It was not until July this year that the Axon 30 was improved.
Other manufacturers have also adopted their own different solutions to solve this problem, such as the technology demonstrated by Xiaomi, which achieves higher screen transmittance by shrinking a single pixel. In the patent applied by vivo, they use PMOLED material as the camera position display material. Because PMOLED itself has high light transmittance, it can improve the self-timer effect.
In addition, OPPO, Meizu and other manufacturers have also put forward their own related patents, but there is little difference in principle. One attempt is to reduce the number of pixels, and the other is to reduce a single pixel. These two methods have their own advantages and disadvantages, but the ultimate goal is to improve the light transmittance.
Another problem that is difficult to solve is the problem of screen display effect. Because the technology of off-screen camera hides the camera by reducing the number of pixels or pixels, if the overall resolution of the mobile phone is too high, there will be higher requirements for the number of pixels per inch of the camera area, which will affect the amount of light entering, so manufacturers can only reduce the resolution as much as possible to realize the integrated look and feel of the front screen.
Take ZTE, which launched two off-screen camera phones, as an example. The Axon 20 launched in 2020 and the Axon 30 launched in 202 1 both have a resolution of 6.92 inches 1080p. In fact, the resolution of 1080p is adopted on mobile phones close to 7 inches, in order to meet the pixel requirements of the off-screen camera area as much as possible. For users, others of the same size,
Although there are some minor problems, the breakthrough of new technology, from pop-up camera to off-screen camera, enables the mobile phone to achieve a real full screen in a better way, and we can still see the obvious advantages of this technology:
1, the off-screen camera realizes the complete look and feel of the front screen, which has a better look and feel for both daily use and audio-visual entertainment;
2. Due to the integrated design, the off-screen camera can make the mobile phone fully screen and realize waterproof;
3. Compared with pop-up camera with mechanical structure, off-screen camera can reduce the weight of mobile phone.
However, although ZTE has continuously launched two off-screen camera phones in the past two years, Xiaomi, OPPO and vivo, as major mobile phone manufacturers, are still cautious. On the one hand, a high-resolution screen and a high-pixel front-facing self-timer camera have become the standard of flagship mobile phones. It is obviously too radical to sacrifice these two parts in order to realize the off-screen camera. On the other hand, these big factories are also waiting for the technology to further mature and continue internal iteration, which has laid the foundation for the high-end parallel products of various manufacturers.
Looking at the current mobile phone market, the prices of ZTE Axon 20 and Axon 30, which take off-screen cameras as selling points, are not high, focusing on the price of 2000-3000 yuan. For ordinary consumers, this selling point is attractive, but if the price of mobile phones is raised to more than 4000 yuan, whether users are willing to pay for it is still unknown.
A well-known digital blogger told the School of Business Data that at present, it will take time to popularize the technology of off-screen photography. In the past, because the technology was not mature enough, the effect of the front camera of mobile phone became worse, so it was risky for mobile phone manufacturers to play high-end. "This is more like a high point in the digital circle."
Market feedback seems to prove this. ZTE Axon 20, which sells for 2 198 yuan, has more than 5,000 comments in the official store in JD.COM. According to the ratio of general consumer digital products 1: 10, the sales volume of this mobile phone in JD.COM is about 50,000, and it has reached 654,300 since the release of Axon 30 in July.
However, manufacturers such as Xiaomi and Samsung hope to use this technology to further expand their high-end product lines. At present, it is said that Xiaomi MIX4, which will be released by Xiaomi in August 10, and Galaxy Fold 3, which will be launched by Samsung in August 1 1, will adopt the off-screen camera technology, which seems to prove that the technology has changed to a usable level, but these products are not just this big selling point. Judging from the current official publicity, Xiaomi MIX4 will have a faster charging speed and a better camera system.
Android phones equipped with off-screen cameras can finally draw a line with the iPhone again. As an important way for mobile phones to achieve full screen, the maturity of new technology may not be as fast as people think, but we may see the growth of off-screen camera technology from off-screen fingerprint technology. At first, the off-screen fingerprint identification technology was only equipped on some mobile phones, but with the maturity of the technology, it has almost become the standard of Android phones. As the development focus of Android manufacturers, off-screen camera technology may exist in mid-to high-end mobile phones, and