If you're someone that enjoys technology, you may remember a time when there was a sense of excitement in the lead up to the release of a new smartphone. But, over the years, leaks have become quite common and frankly, the smartphone space has somewhat stagnated. Surprisingly, it isn't Samsung or LG that has moved the needle this past year, but a company named Vivo. The company teased its fingerprint reader that resides under a display, showed off a working unit during CES, and now has revealed to the public an "in the flesh" concept handset that caters to the wildest desires of any techie.
The APEX FullView concept smartphone came as a bit of surprise, going past what we know, and presenting a device that shows us where we want to be. As expected, it has a near bezel-less OLED display but pushes the boundaries offering a screen to body ratio of 95 percent. The current iteration of the handset has 1.8mm bezels on the top, left and right-hand side, and a 4.3mm one on the bottom. The firm plans to reduce the bottom one to 1.8mm, which will give the phone a ratio that will exceed 98 percent. Perhaps even more impressive is that the screen also acts as a giant speaker by vibrating the display to produce sound, with Vivo calling it Screen SoundCasting Technology.
The front-facing camera on a smartphone has become important, especially when some make it a ritual of taking selfies on a daily basis. You can imagine the problem here when it comes to having a phone that's all display on the front, but Vivo has solved this problem on the Apex with a motorized camera. The camera elevates from the top portion of the phone whenever activated, taking less than a second to become available for use. It's an impressive and elegant solution, one that will undoubtedly become the talking point when seen in public by onlookers.
As a final nod to the future, Vivo has expanded its in-display fingerprint technology just a couple months after CES to show off the "World’s First Half-Screen In-Display Fingerprint Scanning Technology". As you might guess, this means that you will no longer have to position your finger in one small spot like previous iterations of the sensor, and users will instead be able to place it anywhere in the lower half of the display. This certainly changes things, and also brings more convenience to a technology that many are still apprehensive about, especially considering just how good current fingerprint readers are.
Unfortunately, the APEX won't be available for sale next month, so don't bother looking for it at your favorite wireless carrier, as it is merely just a concept. But unlike a simple render or something you might see behind glass at a convention, it is working unit, currently wowing attendees at MWC, which means it could arrive sooner than you think.
Source: Vivo
21 Comments - Add comment