OPPO has presented the ‘next generation’ of a new front camera that is placed behind a smartphone screen. This new camera should solve many previous problems, which would be partly due to better AI and smaller pixels of the screen.
OPPO says the new front camera works in a way that preserves the integrity and consistency of the OLED screen, both during use and when the phone is in standby mode. The manufacturer is probably referring to limiting the pixel density in previous iterations. This was done to increase the amount of light hitting the sensor.
The current solution uses smaller pixels to achieve this. According to the manufacturer, this means that there are no fewer pixels in the part of the smartphone screen where the front camera is located. OPPO says there is 400ppi, even with this part of the screen. In addition, the manufacturer says that it has used transparent wiring and that its thickness has been reduced by half. This should also lead to higher screen quality.
Furthermore, OPPO says that it has used pixel circuits in the camera part of the screen, each driving only a single pixel. That would deviate from the industry standard of always using a circuit to drive two pixels. The manufacturer states that this leads to better management of the screen brightness with a small deviation, with colors coming into their own better and small font sizes can also be displayed decently.
In terms of the camera, OPPO has developed a series of AI algorithms that should limit or solve some issues with cameras behind smartphone screens, such as blurry images and glare in the photos. The algorithms aim to reduce diffraction and improve dynamic range and automatic white balance. The AI model to limit diffraction at the source would have been trained on tens of thousands of images, allowing for more natural images.
The manufacturer does not yet say when it will implement this front camera solution in a smartphone that will actually come out. The company indicates that it will first continue to develop this technology. At the current unveiling, the company has shown a prototype of a smartphone in which the new front camera is processed. ZTE actually released a phone with a front camera behind the screen, the Axon 20 5G . The Axon 30 , which has since been released in China, should have improvements such as the pixel density of 400ppi.
About two years ago, OPPO already showed a concept smartphone with a front camera behind the screen and at the end of 2019 a smartphone prototype with such a front camera, although it was still about earlier iterations. It became clear in November last year that OPPO, like Xiaomi, is working on a front camera behind the screen that uses smaller pixels.