After teasing its under-display camera earlier this month, Oppo today gave us more info on its new tech.
Oppo today showed off its under-screen camera at MWC Shanghai. The tech is exactly what it sounds like, placing a front-facing camera underneath the display and eliminating the need for a notch or pop-up mechanism. Oppo explains that it uses a custom camera module, an enhanced translucent panel material, and processing algorithms to make its camera work.
When you're looking at the display and the camera isn't on, the screen works just like you'd expect it to. As Engadget Chinese notes, though, you can see that the part of the display that's above the camera appears a bit more pixelated if you look at it closely enough.
The camera itself uses bigger pixels and a larger aperture to help it take in as much light as possible since its sitting underneath a screen. Oppo is also using software algorithms to help remove haze and improve HDR and white balance.
While Oppo is talking more about its under-screen camera tech today, it's not saying much about when we can expect to see a phone with this feature actually launch. The only detail that Oppo has been willing to share is that a phone with this tech will appear "in the near future."
Under-screen camera tech is appealing because it lets you avoid a notch, giving you more of your screen, while also skipping a pop-up camera mechanism that could break or fail. Of course, an under-screen camera has challenges of its own, like the fact that it's under the screen and so photo quality may not be quite the same as a camera in a notch or bezel rather than having a display in front of it. Oppo says its software algorithms overcome problems like haze, though, and so we're interested in taking this under-screen camera for a spin to see just how it performs.