Josh Hendrickson
It’s safe to say Vivo was looking forward to Mobile World Congress. The company planned to show off the Apex 2020, a concept phone with several hardware triumphs. Vivo says the phone has a 48-megapixel camera with “gimbal-like” stabilization, optical zoom, and an ultra-curved display. And it still had more to show off.
Let’s be clear for a second; we think curved screens are pointless and terrible. But Vivo disagrees, and that shows with the Vivo Apex 2020. On this concept phone, the display curves nearly to the back of the phone, one-upping previous “waterfall display” concepts.
At this point, we’d write the phone off, but it does have other exciting features. For one, the company claims the Apex 2020 has (or would have if it’s real) a 5x to 7.5x optical zoom camera. That’s something you don’t find in smartphones. Samsung may be touting 100x Zoom on its S20 Ultra, but that’s a digital crop, and the results are less than spectacular.
True optical zoom, though, will produce better results. Looking at Vivo’s provided pictures, it seems like the company is burying the sensor and using mirrors in a periscope fashion to make the hardware fit.
Of course, zooming in on far aware subjects becomes difficult without proper stabilization, and Vivo has that covered too. The 48-megapixel camera sports a “gimbal-like” structure that the company says is a “200 perfect” improvement over other Optical Image Stabilization smartphone techniques.
You’ll find other pushes towards the edge in the Apex 2020, including an in-display selfie cam, a complete lack of ports, and 60W wireless charging. Of course, we may never see any of this come true, the Apex 2020 is a concept phone and may not even exist in hardware form. Only time will tell if it can turn any of these promises into reality.
via Vivo
