Vivo shows off a concept smartphone with a detachable camera module
In a bid to step around the notch design, many companies have been creating a variety of alternative solutions. This comes in the form of hole-punch camera cutouts, slideout cameras, and popup cameras, but we think that Vivo is really taking the cake on this one with their new IFEA concept smartphone.
As you can see in the renders above, Vivo has an idea in which the front-facing camera is not only a popup camera, but it can actually be removed and used as a standalone device. The design has apparently won the company the Red Dot Design Award, although do note that this is a concept and we’re not sure if Vivo has plans to make it a reality.
That being said, we’re not sure if this might necessarily be the best of ideas. Sure, we can see a lot of potential use for a detachable camera module. The port could also be used for external accessories like maybe a flash unit, an external battery pack, health accessories, and so on, but our main concern would be losing the module.
Given how tiny it is, it would be easy for you to drop it or lose it. We are also concerned that one day the attachment could become loose and fall out of our pockets, and we’d hate to think how much customers might need to pay to replace it. We do think that it is still a rather clever design and one that we might not necessarily have thought of, so kudos to Vivo for that!
In the meantime, other handset makers are trying to fit the camera module under the display. So far we’ve seen attempts by Xiaomi and ZTE, but we can’t speak to the image quality captured by these cameras yet.
Source: GizChina