Over the weekend
We just got a look at the first under display camera that we've seen in a functional or seemingly functional prototype
and this was a video brought up by Oppo on their social media account
but they have a front-facing camera that is hidden under the display. and then a few hours later
Xiaomi another chinese company puts out a video with the same kind of technology and this video quality's a little bit better
They're showcasing a device that looks very much like a mi 9 but it also has a fully functioning front-facing selfie camera
And it's crazy. like this is technology that we've been seeking or the phone manufacturing world has been seeking for the past little while
we started off with the phone with a notch the essential phone and then the
iPhone had a notch and then every Android phone start to have notches
And then we started to get phones this year with things that aren't notches but aren't really like, you know
This isn't the final form that we're looking for. We have pop-up cameras. We have flip up cameras.
We have devices that are trying to circumvent the whole notch and punch hole technology.
But the reality is that they're all trying to achieve a completely natural bezzel-less flip up camera list device
and that's what these prototypes are showing
now from what I understand the way that they're achieving this
is that they're turning off the pixels right in front of the camera sensors
so on a regular OLED display
It's just a bunch of diodes that are being lit and when they turn off
Particular diodes and you can turn off individually ones on an OLED panel when you turn off a set of diodes
Whatever's behind it now has a less obstructed line-of-sight
So if you look at this still from the xiaomi video you can still see that the camera with this under display sensor
Still has a camera visible on that prototype. It's subtle, but it's there
It's not as evident as the regular mean and that's beside it
But it's definitely there
So they've turned off the diodes in that region which allows the camera to be able to shoot through it
But the problem is that that area that's been turned off is not optically transparent
It's translucent we can obviously see through it to some degree
But it's not a super clean image and that's the problem that all these manufacturers are facing right now. anyone who's chasing this
under display sensor, under display camera
has to figure out how to clean up that image because when you shoot through those diodes
Even if they're off it's not clean and they're going to need software or some kind of algorithm to clean up that image as best as they can
and maybe they can use maybe two cameras so that you have basically two data points to work with
and then they be able to combine that.
I'm not exactly sure what the techniques are that they could use for this
but that is the problem they're facing right now. How do we clean up that image?
So that it is acceptable in today's Selfie camera market
And keep in mind that these guys aren't first, right. Samsung's been working on this technology for quite a while now
Even in 2018 there were showing slides of how they were working on some under display sensors and in earlier this year
They showed like their whole infinity display lineup with the new infinity being the one that's the end goal
But it's super interesting to me that these two Chinese companies out of nowhere showcase this technology in a fully functioning prototype.
So for me, like I'm not someone that uses selfie cameras very often
So I'd be very willing to eat image quality on my front-facing camera for that technology today
Obviously, they're probably not going to do that
Like they want to get a front-facing image that's comparable to a regular front-facing selfie camera, right?
Obviously that's what most people are going for. But I think for a lot of people myself included would just eat crap front-facing image quality for that technology today
I mean, I'm willing to put up with the terrible camera on a 12-inch MacBook
That's like a 480p camera that looks like garbage
but whoever brings that technology to the market first
like whoever does it, is gonna have a banger
because it resolved things like having moving parts and having reduced water resistance ratings and stuff like that
having a under display camera sensor is like....
It's the dream.
Okay, that basically wraps it up. I think this technology is cool
I'm really glad that we were able to see something this early on. I did not expect it. It's crazy that
This went from a neat idea to a seemingly functional prototype in a very short period of time.
And that's really cool
Obviously, there's a lot more work to be done. But I like what I see.
Okay. Hope you guys enjoyed this video
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See you guys next time