Oppo releases photos taken with its prototype Under Screen Camera for phones

By Andy Boxall Published August 4, 2021

Oppo has revealed its latest Under Screen Camera (USC), which it hopes will eventually replace the notch or hole-punch cutout on a smartphone, and hide the selfie camera beneath the screen instead. The company claims its USC has the “perfect balance between screen and camera quality,” and has released two selfies taken with the camera for proof.

Oppo's prototype phone with an under display camera — Image used with permission by copyright holder

It’s not the first of its type we’ve seen. Oppo has already had a go at getting the complicated tech right and showed its first version at MWC Shanghai in 2019. It didn’t go on to debut on a smartphone, but ZTE has released not one but two devices — the Axon 20 5G and the Axon 30 5G — with Under Screen Cameras, although neither has made much of an impact internationally.

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What has Oppo done differently here? It uses both hardware and software to get the performance right. The camera has a 400 pixel-per-inch density, achieved here by making the pixels smaller, along with thinner wiring made from transparent materials for a more compact module. The software links each pixel circuit to a single pixel, allowing the brightness to be better controlled and for the screen to show more colors and greater detail. A host of other tweaks help the camera and screen work better than before, including HDR, auto white balance, and diffraction reduction using artificial intelligence (A.I.).

Example selfies taken with Oppo's Under Screen Camera. — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The two selfies sent out by Oppo show good white balance, a natural tone, and plenty of detail. However, it’s also obvious the selfies were taken in good lighting conditions and outside, when even the most basic selfie camera should be able to take a decent photo. Performance in low light, and in more challenging lighting conditions inside, will be the real test for Oppo’s USC camera.

Wondering when Oppo will put its USC on a phone you can buy? It’s not giving any indication when this will happen, saying instead that it will continue to work on the technology, “with the end goal to bring a more immersive, full-screen USC system to users worldwide.” This suggests it doesn’t consider the tech ready for general use yet, and considering the two-year gap between its first USC and this version, we may still have some time to wait.

Former Senior Mobile Writer

Andy has written about mobile technology for almost a decade. From 2G to 5G and smartphone to smartwatch, Andy knows tech.

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