In those times of exciting folding and dual screen smartphones we could have overlooked the fact that there’s another race for innovation going on – to create an all-screen smartphone.Chinese giant Xiaomi has been working hard to get rid of notches and punch hole cameras for that exact reason. Over a month ago, we saw that it had patented a wild-looking rotating phone camera design, where a module which holds all the cameras is placed on the back of the device and can rotate all over, as to cover selfies and other photography.More recently, Xiaomi gave us a peek of an actual existing smartphone with a hidden under-display camera, not just a patent. The video demonstrates a phone that doesn’t have a visible selfie camera anywhere on the display, yet, of course, the phone is capable of taking selfies. Where once was a punch hole camera interrupting the display, that selfie camera is now hidden under it.
And while we wait for that smartphone to become a consumer product, we can take a look at another interesting patent from Xiaomi, thanks to LetsGoDigital.
This new patent, published today, shows 16 renders of an all-screen smartphone with not a single but dual sharp-looking pop-up camera modules. The angled modules appear to hold two cameras each, one facing forwards, for selfies, and the other backwards. How Xiaomi would have managed to fit two cameras into such a cramped space is anyone’s guess, unless this smartphone actually gets made. There’s also a flash on the back of the phone, centered right under the pop-up modules.
The rest of the phone is fairly standard – a flat display with minimal bezels, USB Type-C port on the bottom, and surrounding it are likely microphone and speaker grills. The phone’s power and volume keys are on its right side, and on the top, next to the pop-up camera modules, we can see either a sim card tray or an IR blaster, which are common on Xiaomi phones.
As wild as this patent is, realistically we can expect that Xiaomi will go with the hidden under-display selfie camera instead, as it results in the cleanest look. No motorized moving parts would also mean better durability.
