The Vivo Apex: A concept phone that uses a retracting selfie camera and Half-screen fingerprint scanner

There has been a war on bezels on the smartphones that have been declared by the leading phone manufacturers and this is evident from the latest of the offering by these players. Something that became a victim of the bezel wars has been the positioning of the selfie camera as most smartphone designs do need the bezel to house the camera on the front.

The Vivo Apex has tried out a pop-up camera concept that has the camera unit coming out into the open when a selfie has to be shot. This is more of a novelty and as to how far it would find acceptance with the using public needs to be seen. But it is nevertheless a novelty. It is bound to find a number of takers for the very concept if it can capture the attention of the diehard selfie shooters. But there can never be denied that this pop-up camera is bound to draw a bit of attention till the very novelty wears out, so to speak.

Another victim of the bezel-free design is the fingerprint scanner that is often at the bottom edge of the smartphone. In some of the other phones, it is possible to locate the scanner at the rear of the phone and even towards the side of the screen. With the Vivo Apex, the screen itself is turned into a scanner and a large one at that too. Quite unlike the small area of the typical scanner, here the good part of the display screen is used as the sensor. The sensor area is, in fact, a third of the screen and this would be not only suited for the purpose but brings in the added comfort as the finger need not be fitted into a small area that the typical scanner is on most of the phones.

It is the more customer-focused of manufacturers that offer increased levels of service and the Vivo Apex would get to define a new set of comfort levels in use of smartphones.