Xiaomi's future smartphone with under-display camera looks fantastic

Chinese company Xiaomi was one of the first to provide a proof of concept for an under-display selfie camera that doesn't need a notch or a punch-hole in order to work. But, the technology wasn't there yet, and early this year the company announced a few hurdles it needs to overcome first, before under-screen cameras can make it to consumer smartphones.

Notably, the dense pixels modern displays have, which are to be in front of the under-display camera, were blocking too much light, said Lu Weibing, VP of Xiaomi. Ultimately, he wrote on Chinese microblogging site Weibo that the entire industry is working hard to find a solution, but it may take a while.

But sooner rather than later, we received renders by LetsGoDigital based on Xiaomi patents approved on April 24th, 2020, which clearly show the company's two planned designs for their future under-screen selfie camera smartphone. The only difference between the two designs - the placement of the "invisible" front camera.


The selfie camera should be fully invisible to the user when consuming content, covered by a normal array of screen pixels, which would shut off when it's time to take a selfie, letting the camera below do it's business.

The phone itself looks to be fairly standard for the time when this patent was filed by Xiaomi, April 2019. It has a neat, clean look, rounded edges and minimal chin, no bezels elsewhere. Its design reminds a fair bit of last year's Xiaomi Mi 9, which we featured on our Best Android phones page.