The Vivo Nex seems to have earned the title as the smartphone with the first truly bezel-less display as well as what appears to be another smartphone world first – an elevating front camera.
The Chinese smartphone manufacturer unveiled a rather genius concept phone, Vivo Apex, back in February at Mobile World Congress, creating hope for the ‘all-screen' dream. However a production version wasn't expected to arrive as early as June 12, when Vivo launched its latest flagship with a 91.24% screen-to-body ratio, beating all other phones on the market.
And it's big too: the Nex is 6.59in with a Super AMOLED display, so it's helpful that the battery is also large, 4000mAh, and comes with fast battery charging (22W).
It's largely our selfie habit that prohibits a fully notch-less or bezel-less screen, so Vivo designed its way around the issue with an 8-megapixel camera that drops down into the phone and pops up when needed. As for the primary camera on the back, a dual set of 12-megapixel and 5-megapixel is used, which could be seen as a letdown as similar flagships are using stronger setups, such as the OnePlus 6 that comes with 16-megapixel and 20-megapixel.
Another challenge to achieving the all-screen factor was speaker placement; to solve this, the Nex instead features Screen SoundCasting Technology that uses vibrations to transform the display into a speaker itself. The brand claims that this “enhances sound quality with more powerful bass, and softer, smoother treble”.
As for unlocking the phone, the Vivo Nex uses an in-display sensor, as seen on the Apex concept phone. This time it doesn't cover quite as much of the display but is claimed to be “improved in both accuracy and speed, following its successes with the X20UD and X21”.
AI-powered, the flagship comes with a smart camera, along with Jovi assistant and a dedicated AI button.
The Nex features the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, with 8GB of RAM and either 128GB or 256GB of internal storage.
It should be noted that the Vivo Nex comes in two editions, both available in black and red, one being the Nex S, a premium version, as described above and the slightly more affordable Nex A with 6GB of RAM, without the option of 256GB of internal storage and the fingerprint sensor on the rear rather than in-display.
The Vivo Nex is set to be available in China for the price of 4,998 yuan (RM3,115) according to The Verge. Vivo has yet to give details on other markets. — AFP Relaxnews