5G Wireless Technology

5G Wireless Technology – ZTE unveils the Axon 20 5G, the first phone with an under-display camera

ZTE At the time of writing, ZTE hasn’t shared any footage of the phone in action (we’re curious to see if you can ‘spot’ the camera from a distance) or example photos for us to scrutinise. It’s not the only one working on this particular smartphone trick: we’ve seen Oppo prototypes with a similar offering,…

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Published on September 17, 2020

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5G Wireless Technology –

At the time of writing, ZTE hasn’t shared any footage of the phone in action (we’re curious to see if you can ‘spot’ the camera from a distance) or example photos for us to scrutinise. It’s not the only one working on this particular smartphone trick: we’ve seen Oppo prototypes with a similar offering, and Xiaomi has promised to launch a phone with an under-display camera next year. Oppo’s early efforts weren’t perfect, however — my colleague Richard Lai noted that clarity and color accuracy had “room for improvement.” If ZTE can match the image quality of traditional selfie snappers, the Axon 20 5G will be one of 2020’s most memorable phones.

We can say with near-certainty, at least, that the performance won’t be that special. The Axon 20 5G uses Qualcomm’s 5G-ready Snapdragon 765G, which also comes in the OnePlus Nord, Motorola Edge, LG Velvet and Nokia’s 8.3 5G. We’ve used some of these phones and found the chipset to be decent, but a touch slower than the silicon used in high-end flagships.

In a press release, ZTE confirmed that the phone will be 7.98mm thick — almost identical to Samsung’s standard Galaxy S20 — and powered by a 4220mAh battery that supports 30W quick charging. The rear of the phone houses a 64-megapixel primary camera capable of 4K video at 60 frames per second, as well as HDR clips and “super night scenes.” There’s a bunch of other glass on the back but ZTE hasn’t broken them down for us yet. There’s no word on the phone’s RAM, storage, wireless charging or water resistance at the moment, either. When the handset does come out, though, we know it’ll be available in black, blue, purple and orange.

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