4 Creative Ways Android Smartphones Avoid the Camera Notch

While the Essential phone was the first
smartphone to debut with a notch, many people attribute the design trend to
Apple. Most manufacturers have gone to great lengths to reduce or entirely remove
the appearance of a notch on their more recent smartphones. Let’s take a look
at the best notch-less Android phones of 2019 to further complicate your
next financial decision when it comes time for your next upgrade. 

Flippable Camera – ASUS ZenFone 6

ASUS took an entirely different approach to
remove the notch by making the rear camera flippable. The dual-camera system in
the ZenFone 6 features a Sony IMX586 48-megapixel sensor. It also features a
13-megapixel ultrawide secondary camera. The best part about this phone is that
the rear camera features a motor that can be used to flip it forward to use as
a selfie camera. You can rotate the flippable camera to any angle you want
to capture panoramas and ultrawide selfie shots. The angle can be fully
controlled from 0-180 degrees. It’s a unique take on offering a new phone that
has a great camera but features no notch to mar the screen experience. 

Motorized Camera – OnePlus 7 Pro

OnePlus hopped on board the notch train
with the OnePlus 6, but the design trend didn’t stick around for more than a
single generation. With the introduction
of the OnePlus 7 Pro, the Chinese company showed off their camera
engineering. The OnePlus 7 Pro features a motorized front-facing camera that is
hidden inside the device, ready to pop out when needed. 

The OnePlus 7 Pro’s rear camera features
the Sony IMX586 sensor, an ultrawide and night-time camera. But the real beauty
of this device is the pop-up camera hidden in the top left. The downside of
this motorized camera is that it can’t be activated manually. You have to set
up Face Unlock or open the camera app to take a selfie. 

Hole Punch – Samsung Galaxy S10

Samsung couldn’t quite get away from the
notch this year in the form of an under-display selfie camera. The Samsung
Galaxy S10 features an 8MP RGB depth camera and a 10MP selfie camera
underneath the display. Technically this presentation is notch-less since the
cameras aren’t placed in the middle of the screen. The dual lens selfie
camera is off on the right side of the screen, and the hole-punch design is
interesting, but not the best implementation. Hopefully, Samsung will take some
inspiration from OPPO and Xiaomi for the next iteration of the Galaxy
smartphone. 

Under the Screen – OPPO & Xiaomi

Chinese smartphone manufacturers OPPO and
Xiaomi are working on under-display camera tech that can shoot through screens.
While neither OPPO or Xiaomi has a current smartphone with this tech, they have
showcased it at trade shows. At MWC Shanghai in June, Oppo showcased an
experimental technology that uses custom transparent material. Oppo uses a
redesigned pixel structure for screens so that light can get through to the
camera. The sensor on these types of devices is larger than other selfie
cameras and will reduce photo quality. 

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