Xiaomi files patent for an under-display camera phone
2 min. read
Published on
Share this article
Improve this guide
Read our disclosure page to find out how can you help MSPoweruser sustain the editorial team Read more
Smartphone manufacturers have found some clever as well as a better alternative to the notch — some manufacturers settled on hole-punch display design and some completely got rid of the notch by adopting the pop-up selfie camera design and while the latter appears to be like a cool piece of tech, it’s not something that’s worth banking on going forward as there are multiple compromises that the manufacturers need to make if they chose to go with the pop-selfie camera design.
Big names in the smartphone industry have been working on a technology that makes smartphones truly all-screen for quite a while now and it looks like some progress has been made. After OPPO, Huawei, and Samsung, Xiaomi seems to have found a way to develop a smartphone with an under-display selfie camera.
On April 29, 2019, Chinese tech giant Xiaomi filed a patent for an under-screen camera phone with CNIPA (China Intellectual Property Administration). The patent was approved on April 24, 2020, after which it was published in the WIPO Global Design database, for the worldwide protection of this design (via Letsgodigital).
Now, graphic designer Jermaine Smit, aka ConceptCreator, has created a series of renders based on the patent, giving us a sneak peek into what Xiaomi’s under-display camera smartphone will look like.
As you can see in the above images, Xiaomi’s patented smartphone doesn’t have a notch, nor does it have a punch hole camera system — it’s truly all-screen. The patent suggests that Xiaomi could either place the front camera either in the middle or on the left side of the display. Whenever the selfie camera is activated, the portion of the screen, under which the selfie camera is located, becomes transparent, thus allowing the camera to capture what’s in front of it. The screen gets back to its normal state when you exit the selfie camera.
The smartphone features a flat display and has a triple camera system placed vertically, below which there is an LED flash. On the sides, you find the power button and volume rockers. At the bottom, you’ll find a speaker grill and a USB-C port.
