The smartphone industry is continuing the last year’s trend of creating the largest possible screen area. The old trend of broad bezels has been completely minimized, and several alternatives have been found for the selfie camera and other sensors. Some smartphone manufacturers opt for a notch at the top of the screen, others opt for an extendable camera, and in the meantime, even the first mobile phones are available with a hole in the screen.
This time a special Xiaomi mobile phone has come up. The Chinese smartphone manufacturer has devised yet another alternative to the front camera. The information comes from two design patents that Xiaomi has applied for at WIPO (World Intellectual Property Office). The patents were published on March 29, 2019, and show a smartphone with an almost full screen.
Xiaomi phone with the dual front camera at the bottom
Where the selfie camera is usually processed at the top of the device, Xiaomi has chosen to process the camera at the bottom of the screen. At the bottom, in the middle, a recess has been made for a double front camera. It looks like the phone is being turned upside down. And no, it’s not an April 1 joke.
The question is what this design will mean in practice for the composition of self-portraits. Because the front camera is placed lower, a different, less natural composition is created, whereby your chin becomes disproportionately large. How Xiaomi wants to prevent this is not clear from the patent. Users may simply have to hold the device a little higher to make a composition straight from the front.
Now you may wonder if the quality of selfies does not benefit, what is the purpose of this design? Aesthetically it simply looks nicer. Because your eyes are more focused on the top of the screen instead of on the bottom, the notch is simply less noticeable.
The first patent also shows two Xiaomi telephone models. The front of both devices is identical; only the back differs from each other. Both designs show a dual camera, both at the front and rear.
One model has a smooth rear, as we are used to from the Xiaomi Mi and Redmi line-up; the other model shows a narrow band on either side of the device (see the two images above). It is possible that another material is used for this, although it is also possible that the curve of the device is simply illustrated with this.
The second patent shows many similarities with the first. Here too, we see two Xiaomi smartphone models, where only the back differs. The back is incidentally identical to the first patent, only the front differs.
With this model, too, a notch has been made at the bottom of the screen. This time, however, the notch cannot be found in the middle, but one front camera has been placed on both sides. This design, therefore, also involves a double front camera.
The design looks a bit like a patent we reported on last year, a smartphone with a quad notch. With this model, however, two equal notches were also made at the top.
It is difficult to predict whether Xiaomi really intends to introduce a new smartphone with a notch at the bottom. What is certain is that the Chinese manufacturer more often opts for unique designs to stand out from the crowd. For example, the company introduced the Xiaomi Mi 9 last month, and a transparent edition of this top model was also announced.
