Vivo held in Hong Kong the day past a media fingers-on session for its Apex 2019 concept telephone that first made news in January for having no bodily buttons, ports or “holes” (which means speaker grilles or earpiece) of any type. The concept becomes to reap a “minimalistic” tool that is completely uninterrupted through transferring elements, protrusions or indentations, so it could be one easy, unibody piece.
Due to the wildly competitive nature of the Chinese cellphone area, a smaller emblem named Meizu controlled to scouse borrow some of Vivo’s thunder by means of dashing to release a similar “hole-much less” device, which I tested thoroughly and found to be a concept that became too radical for its own good.
After testing Vivo’s Apex 2019 for an hour, I can say the identical troubles that stricken me approximately Meizu’s tool might still prevent the Apex 2019 had been I to ever use it complete time. Chief amongst those is that Vivo’s smartphone, like Meizu’s tool, can best make a cellular connection thru e-SIM because of the shortage of a physical SIM card slot. The former tech isn’t always even near being geared up for mainstream adoption.
Another problem I had with this button-much less layout become that the contact/stress sensitive capacitive facet panels had been impossible to find via touch (remember, those telephones are entirely smooth on the perimeters), and I simply can’t see myself ever wanting to surrender the ease of being able to adjust extent without difficulty in prefer of having a phone it’s barely “smoother” alongside the edges.
But right here’s the issue, Vivo understands this. Unlike Meizu, which in reality took its idea phone to the crowdfunding degree (and flopping), execs at Vivo told the media the day past the device is just a concept to expose off future era, and that it may not be released to the general public.
Of the new tech, the one that inspired me most is that the whole display of the Apex 2019 is basically a fingerprint reader, which means a consumer can unlock the tool via pressing their thumb on any a part of the display screen. This is done via implanting an optical sensor under the whole display panel of the idea smartphone, a large improvement over the present day in-screen fingerprint scanning tech that calls for finger placement on a selected–and small–portion of the screen, which can be difficult to locate at instances. I’m presently checking out the Samsung Galaxy S10 right now with such a scanner, and I can say it took me days to discover ways to unlock the telephone while not having to discover the blind spot.
It should not be sudden that Vivo is the only to introduce this stepped forward tech, because the Shenzhen-centered enterprise become the pioneer of the in-show fingerprint scanner movement, and it has continued to evolve the tech at a tempo that can best be defined as “China speed.” When I examined the first Vivo device with an in-display fingerprint scanner just 10 months ago, I discovered the tech a combined bag that failed to paintings all of the time. Three months later, Vivo had improved it to a degree that I had no problems with the scanner. And now, the Apex 2019 takes it to its no-compromise maximum capacity.
Vivo did say that embedding an optical sensor below the entire display panel drives up production prices drastically, so don’t expect to peer this all-display screen fingerprint scanner tech “honestly soon.” But this is a Chinese smartphone emblem we are speaking approximately, and the fee at which they work and the cut-throat aggressive marketplace has me confident that we are going to see this tech be used in an extensive launched Vivo flagship by means of autumn of 2019.
