Huawei’s Under Display Camera Smartphone

Every year there’s a new must-have feature for flagship phones. Last year it was all about the waterfall displays. We’ve seen it in many Chinese devices such as the Vivo Nex 3, and Huawei’s Mate 30 Pro. Waterfall Display is basically when the side edges of a display are curved to such a degree that you can’t see any side edge bezel – it’s as if there’s a cliff edge and the screen is flooding off it, hence the name. Now, the concept of a curved screen isn’t new by any means. Samsung deserves credit for kickstarting the curved screen trend that’s now evolved into waterfall displays. The Mate 30 Pro and Vivo Nex 3 took the concept and pushed it to the next level and that’s only the beginning. We already know where this trend will eventually take us and that’s full wraparound screens. Xiaomi recently gave us a sneak peek in the form of the Mi Mix Alpha.

The glass edges of the Alpha flow all the way to its back, pushing the concept of waterfall display to its ultimate conclusion. Now before reaching that full wraparound display showcased by Xiaomi, we can expect smartphone companies to expand the waterfall display to give more screen real estate and that’s exactly what Huawei is working on for their future phone. They filed a patent for an under-display camera smartphone with edges that curve all the way to the back of the phone. It looks like the Mate 30 Pro but on steroids. Almost all of the major smartphone companies are working on the under-display camera smartphone, the last time we heard Samsung is considering launching the Galaxy S21 with this novel tech. So Huawei working on an under-display camera smartphone of their own is not really news because it’s a given at this point. But what’s interesting though is this new type of completely bezel-less wrap around display with its expansive screen real estate. Ben Geskin made a render based on these patents and oh boy, does it make for a hell of a look.

There’s only a power button up top and no volume button on sides which means volume slider could be displayed virtually via a sidebar. Now it goes on without saying that this is still a patent and we don’t know which Huawei flagships will end up getting this design or even get this design. Because companies experiment with all kinds of designs all the time so this doesn’t guarantee an actual finished product. But it makes you wonder, though. Is this going too far? Because I can already tell there will be two types of comments in the comment section, those who love the design and those who hate it. And I totally get it why some of you hate it though. Apart from looking futuristic and pretty, this doesn’t serve any functional benefit and is impractical in many use cases. This display will be quite easy to touch by accident, especially on a large-scale screen when reaching across it, so the likelihood of touching one or both sides and making a device do things you didn’t want it to is high. Furthermore, the absence of traditional buttons is taxing and just doesn’t feel quite right to use. But on the pro side, apart from looking futuristic and giving you an immersive feel, It also opens up a world of tailored software, where edge-specific lighting displays, alerts, and bespoke software interactions can be possible.