Chinese phone maker ZTE maybe be the first to market with a phone sporting an under-display selfie camera, based on a newly-discovered listing for one of its upcoming handsets.
Company president Ni Fei made a surprise announcement just a few days ago, confirming that ZTE would indeed be showcasing this bleeding-edge tech in a forthcoming smartphone, but now a handset that looks as though it fits the profile has been spotted on Chinese certification database TENAA.
Listed as the ‘ZTE A2121’, the ZTE Axon 20 5G is depicted without a visible front-facing camera in the included reference images and is thought to be using technology supplied by display manufacturers Visionox to facilitate its signature camera setup.
Its appearance on the TENAA portal also suggests that it’s nearing launch, however, unless you’re in mainland China, it’s unknown where else the Axon 20 5G will be made available.
It’s worth noting that, despite the phone’s unique front camera setup, the Axon 20 5G isn’t ZTE’s next flagship phone, but rather a 5G-capable mid-ranger, powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 765G chipset.
As cited in the TENAA listing, other hardware details include a 6.92in OLED display, with a 2460×1080 resolution and an in-display fingerprint sensor, 6GB, 8GB or 12GB of RAM and 64GB, 128GB or 256GB of expandable storage.
There’s a quad-camera setup down the phone’s back, fronted by a 64Mp primary sensor, accompanied by an 8Mp ultrawide, a 2Mp depth sensor and a 2Mp macro camera. There’s also a 4120mAh battery with unspecified fast charging capabilities and the phone offers up an Android 10-based user experience, presumably using its own MiFavor 10 UI overlay.
The standout technology in question apes various concept previews we’ve already seen from the likes of fellow Chinese competitors, Oppo and Xiaomi, begging the question, how long will it be until we see devices from other manufacturers hiding their front cameras behind a wall of pixels?