The elusive all-screen phone has been the talk of the industry for a rather long time, with most phone makers tackling the problem their own way. Some have opted for motorized pop-up cameras, others used tiny display punch-holes. and some have even resisted to change thus far, continuing to use the good ol’ notch. Judging from what you’ll see next, all mentioned parties have had a rather solid reason to stay away from under-screen selfie cameras for now.
The world’s first phone with a front camera tucked beneath the display has been outed as the ZTE Axon 20 5G, and as revealed in a couple of samples taken by The Verge, the results are pretty underwhelming. In an impromptu battle with one of Android’s glowing stars, the GooglePixel 5, ZTE’s flashy new phone remains beaten at all fronts, delivering a subpar image quality and overall terrible results. Okay, honestly, considering that these pictures have been taken through glass is an achievement on its own, but at the end of the day, the quality of the selfies taken with ZTE’s under-screen camera leave a lot to be desired. With fuzzy and blurred details, as well as questionable HDR processing, selfies taken with this new ZTE phone have a dreamy aesthetic that’s unfortunately not something suitable for social media in late 2020 and much reminiscent of what the first Android phones were capable of.
With blurred images like these, it’s pretty clear (no pun intended) why the major phone manufacturers have been struggling with under-screen selfie cameras. Even Samsung has been reportedly having issues with the image quality of its own under-display selfie cameras, which is why this tech skipped last year’s Galaxy S20/Note 20 generations and will also likely skip the Galaxy S21 spring crop next month. It seems that the first Samsung phone with such a camera underneath the display will be the Galaxy Z Fold 3 in the second half of 2021. Others, like Xiaomi and Huawei are also expected to reveal similar devices in 2021, but it’s more than certain most big players on the market, including Apple, are exploring under-display selfie cameras.
So far, at least, it seems like we’re not missing much.
