Vivo APEX Officially Unveiled With Under-Display Fingerprint Scanner & Pop-Up Selfie Camera!

The concept phone which made headlines at the MWC 2018 for its futuristic design and stole the limelight for its 98 percent bezel-less screen, pop-up camera technology and a half-screen under-display fingerprint reader is no more a concept.

The Vivo APEX future concept phone is finally getting unveiled, and the Chinese company is all set to enter the APEX into mass production.

Vivo has now officially launched the Apex smartphone in China while announcing that the APEX phone will enter into mass production by mid-2018. Vivo has not shared the full details of the smartphone, but the company did show it off to the Chinese media.

The Vivo APEX managed to attract a lot of attention at the MWC 2018, and people were wondering whether the Apex phone would make it into production. Within a week of Mobile World Congress 2018, the company has announced that the Apex phone will indeed enter production by mid-2018.

Vivo APEX – Details & Specifications

The device will be powered by the latest Qualcomm flagship processor, Snapdragon 845 with a 5.99-inch OLED display with COF technology. It’s a special display with a whopping 98 percent screen-to-body ratio and has both ambient and proximity sensors hidden below the display. The Vivo APEX is completely bezel-less with a border of 1.8mm on three sides and just 4.3mm at the bottom. The OLED panel on the Apex actually serves as an earpiece, as there is no regular earpiece on the smartphone.

The Vivo APEX also features an under-display fingerprint reader. Instead of designating a particular area as a scanner, Vivo has made the entire bottom-third of the display into a fingerprint scanner. The phone will use a new ‘Half-Screen Fingerprint Scanning Technology’ which will give users a larger area for scanning their fingers.

Coming to the new pop-up selfie camera technology, users can fire up the camera app on the device and a selfie camera will pop-up from the top of the phone’s body. Vivo has claimed that the APEX phone can be ready to shoot in only 0.8 seconds.The APEX phone’s camera comes with Super HDR support which has a limited dynamic range of up to 14 EV. The phone will use ultra-dynamic multi-frame preferences and natural tones to make photos appear livelier.

The Vivo APEX also offers Hi-Fi audio technology which features a so-called System in Package (SIP) technology, three amplifiers and a capable DAC. The earpiece has been ditched in favour of using a piezoelectric design, where the entire screen will act as a speaker. The Vivo APEX will also leverage AI algorithm with smart optimization and multi-frame compositing.

Vivo has not revealed any memory or storage details, nor has the Chinese company revealed the exact rear and front camera specifications. Though, as per the reports, Vivo APEX smartphone will feature a pop-up 8MP front camera. The rear camera will have dual sensors, but the details are not out yet. Vivo is still silent on the pricing, but more information will surely make its way out in the coming few months. The smartphone is being expected to be available for purchase in China, in the second half of the year, and globally by the end of 2018.

The APEX Phone Controversy

MWC 2018 was more about iPhone X clones and was very less about innovation. From LG to ASUS to multiple smartphone brands, all copied the iPhone X design language. The one phone which managed to grab some attention was the Vivo APEX. The front of the smartphone is all-screen and it features a Synaptics under-display fingerprint scanner and a pop-up selfie camera. But now, it appears that the innovation was not the original work of the company.

Reportedly, the patent for a no-notch phone was originally filed by Android founder Andy Rubin’s smartphone company, Essential in 2017. The files images reveal that Essential had shared a similar idea as that of the Vivo APEX phone.

The Vivo APEX will go up against some heavy competition in 2018, which includes the likes of Samsung Galaxy S9 series and upcoming phones like OnePlus 6, Xiaomi Mi MIX 2S and others. While we know that the APEX smartphone will enter mass production in mid-2018, we are still awaiting more details!