A Notchless iPhone Is Still A Dream, Despite Oppo’s Announcement
Although not all, there are people who want Apple to get back to a notch-less iPhone. For this, Apple will have to embed all the technology present in the notch beneath the display while retaining the bezel-free design, which is quite difficult.
Oppo, the best-selling smartphone brand in China, has tried this experiment by introducing the world’s first smartphone with a selfie camera underneath the display. Nonetheless, it is an impressive technical evolution, but it’s not possible for a notch-less iPhone yet, for three major reasons.
Not a Commercial Smartphone
A Notchless iPhone is still a dream for many. With the technology that Oppo has shown us, isn’t a phone you would like to go out to buy. Although companies have been talking about doing this for a long time now, Oppo has shown that it can be achieved in the real world. Although the company deserves kudos for getting that far, it is just in its nascent stage of experimentation and it cannot be accepted as a practical commercial product.
A similar lesson has been learned from Samsung’s Galaxy Fold smartphone. In this case, the technology was so expensive that the price become twice that of an iPhone XS. It finally failed and it proved that it isn’t ready for real-life use. Because of this, pre-orders have been cancelled, and there’s as yet no sign when and even if the device might actually make it into the hands of the users. Although Samsung has pronounced it a commercial product, the results are yet to be seen.
Image Quality is Poor
As per the tweet of Oppo, the image quality is compromised by embedding the camera beneath the display. To be more precise, Oppo admits that the camera suffers from the haze, poor dynamic range, and inappropriate white balance.
Apple offers great quality cameras in the iPhone with its Shot on iPhone campaign. But it is not easy to believe that Apple would be willing to launch an iPhone with lower image quality than older models.
A Notchless iPhone needs to embed a Lot of Technology
When it comes to the iPhone X family, it doesn’t show a camera in the notch. In addition, there are eight technology pieces in the notch, from left to right i.e. Infrared camera, Flood illuminator, Proximity sensor, Ambient light sensor, Speaker, Front-facing camera and Microphone, and Dot projector.
The speaker, ambient light sensor, and microphone can be migrated to the top surface of the phone without too much compromise, and maybe the proximity sensor too although with some compromise. But Apple would need to embed the compulsory three elements for Face ID i.e. the infrared camera, dot projector, and flood illuminator.
Synopsis
The truth is, although Oppo has gotten this far, there’s still a big gap between this achievement and a real and commercial notch-less iPhone.