World's First Under-Display Camera Smartphone is HERE

Actually, it's fast, and I can't, in this lighting, oh, I can kind of see it

Today's episode is brought to you by Built Clothing, Built Basics. These are the t-shirts. I wear them all the time. I wear them every day

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Built Basics and I think there's a deal as well. There's a code but the details will be in the

description. You can actually save. I think it's over 20% if you want to pick up a few of these

shirts for yourself or anything else they have on the site. So thanks again to Built Basics. Today we have a very exciting smartphone and it's exciting for one very specific reason

This is the Axon 20 5G from ZTE. This phone is not here

It is not in North America. I mean, it's here in front of me, but it's not in North America

It's not in Western markets. It's in China, I believe exclusively at the moment

It's a little vision into the future. This is the world's first smartphone with an under display front facing camera

Now, we've covered this a lot on the Lou Lader Show downstairs. I've been following along as different companies have rushed to be the first to actually exhibit

to actually demonstrate this technology in a commercially available product. This is the first one. It's in a box. You can buy this in China right now

And the other cool part about it is that this one is not that expensive

They're selling this product between $400 and $500 for the higher spec version of it

when you do the conversion from Chinese currency to USD. So it's really interesting to see developments like this in their infancy

in the first commercial product. And then also to recognize that innovation doesn't necessarily have to take place

at the premium price tags every time. And increasingly, it seems to be happening in devices

that are more sort of mid-range from a pricing perspective. So anyways, Axon 25G, Albert Einstein on the box

which if that doesn't get you going, I mean, logic will get you from A to B

Imagination will take you everywhere. Can we get a fact check on that, Will

We can see we have the variant with six gigs of RAM, 128 gigs of storage

5G is right in the name Axon 20 5G. No notch, no hole punch

Now the way they do this is by doing some fancy stuff with the pixels in the region over top

the front facing camera. super glossy mirror look and finish this is your camera module bunch of different camera units

64 megapixel optical stabilization the device actually feels fairly premium i think this is

a metal construction on the bottom we have a usb type c connector speaker unit and that's also

where you're going to install your sim card i believe there's expandable storage here as well

They do include a case by the looks of it Fairly standard clear case This has a kind of texture to it for some reason on the inside and then a vip card what am i a vip of i don know all right we have a power brick which looks

to be a somewhat quick charge power brick do we list the wattage it is a 30 watt charger that's

coming straight from willy do so i don't know about you uh i believe it i believe it

you can decide for yourself if it's worthwhile to believe that i believe it is i believe in

believing in willy do that's a thumbs up ladies and gentlemen also in the package usb type c to

type a connector for the 30 watt power brick and then last up what is this oh a little adapter

type c to mini jack for your headphone connection which is kind of important for a device in this

price range. All right, let's go ahead and see if this has any power. It does. We catch a buzz

I understand the makings of a budget smartphone in 2020. I understand the spec sheet you're used

to seeing with a smartphone around this price point in 2020. I've seen it all. I'm going to say

it straight away. I am interested in this one specific innovation. I am interested to finally

catch a real-life glimpse of this sort of there, but almost not, front-facing camera

So a couple different options for security. You have Face Unlock, which is going to use that in

display front-facing camera. You have Fingerprint, which is also in display. It's an OLED display

actually. And then, of course, Password. Maybe I'll do the Face one. Let me do the fingerprint

as well. It's in the expected location. I've experienced the motorized front-facing camera

face unlock. That's a bit slow because the thing has to pop up and then unlock. I wonder if there's

anything that has to happen here. Actually, it's fast and I can't in this lighting can oh I can

kind of see it. All right, okay. So that works. We are in. So this is one of those tricks where

you see you have the darker wallpaper in order to diminish the appearance of any imperfection

that you might be able to pick up on the portion of screen that goes over top the front facing

camera and we're definitely looking at generation one here in a form of this device now by default

the theme of the phone is all very dark dark mode and it sort of does a good job of hiding the

region in which the camera is housed underneath the display. When you switch over to light mode

or I guess you could call standard mode then you can start to pick up the region in which that

camera lives because the screen has a slightly different appearance to it. So I'll show you what

I'm talking about right here. So you can see the pixels they look a little bit different

and this is highlighted when you have a light background. Now, if I go ahead and switch that back over to dark mode

and it should be a little more difficult to pick it up, you start to almost see the camera itself, right

This is a difficult one, right? We're super early tech here and you know me, I'm always trying to encourage the progress

the development of these new features which eventually will progress to a point where this could be invisible ZTE they want it to be first That what this device is about

It's always the case in technology. If you want to be first, you make certain compromises in the

early stages. What's weird about this for me is what is the alternative? Even if I see a little

slightly pixelated section, is that better or worse than seeing the cutout or seeing the hole

punch. I am an early adopter. I like to have that new technology. And even if it's not perfect

the alternative wasn't really perfect either. Is it more or less distracting than having the

actual hole punch or having a teardrop style? It's certainly not as evident. You kind of have

to look a little more closely to pick it up. But then some people may be annoyed thinking to

themselves, well, it's not perfect yet, so I don't want it yet. I'll search for a recent episode of

Lou later. Will just said something interesting because I should have wondered where the earpiece

was, but it's one of these display earpieces so you can hold it up to your head. But as far as

the video audio is concerned, it's coming out of a single downward facing speaker module that you

can cover up accidentally. You know what I'm saying? A tiny bit of audio from the upper portion

even when you cover the speaker module, but it ain't much. Yeah, the display by the way is FHD plus

and that's not a tremendous number of pixels for a display at this scale

This is a big screen, 6.9, this is almost a seven inch display at 1080p

So can you pick it up Jack? Depends on the angle, right

Yeah, I can't see it. Can't see it, even on white. At this range, I'm gonna go ahead

say it's less distracting than having the hole punch. Certainly when it comes to the

video portion, the video frame, without having a hole punch, it's a little bit more immersive

Even though your eyes can pick up, I can definitely with my eyes see that section, that pixel

weave just looks different. Jack, you must see it there. We're going to try to get some shots of it and we'll overlay them in here so that you

you guys get a real impression for it. But the key factor here, the lighter the picture

that you're looking at, the more you're gonna be able to see the region that's covering up

that front facing camera. But I think it's something you would get used to really fast

And I think as far as the futuristic technology, this is really promising

I mean, the implications of this technology are pretty massive. To have high resolution cameras hidden underneath screens

where you can imagine all the places and all the potential applications for that

even beyond smartphones. Because I wanna see what happens when I flip it around to front facing

You see that little animation that took place up there? Let me just do that one more time

See that up there? What is the quality gonna be like? Let me just turn off the beauty

It does have a kind of softish look to it, Almost like a dreamlike fog, sort of

I don know if that the AI features Yeah so it looks like I can completely turn beauty off and it is doing something to me Like that was the concern for me is since it peering through a set of pixels

is that gonna impact the image? I would say it is kind of a little bit at this moment

just looking at this selfie, but if it is the processing that's making it look a little cloudy

then maybe I should actually try some front facing video. Alright, so this is the front facing video

This is the front facing video quality right here. And the audio as well

Does it still have a kind of dreamlike glow to it? I think it actually looks alright

Maybe I'll just kind of move around a bit here. And walk into a darker environment

There's less light over here from over there. and then i'll go back

i mean it works it's kind of it's kind of wild that this is being recorded

through an actual screen right now the camera is looking through a screen and then at me

it's not the best i've ever seen but it's i mean it's passable it's it's kind of surprising

actually it's hard for me you know i'm often evaluating expensive phones here so it's hard

for me to compare it to like the top tier front-facing video that's out there but certainly

for something that's utilizing some brand new technology i would say for a lot of people that

would be a passable front-facing video or a passable selfie not the greatest i've seen but

at least in in the range sort of all right so what's the verdict here you guys know the main

reason for me looking at this device was to evaluate this particular technological advancement

in the front-facing camera department everybody has been looking towards imagining this

future in which we're just holding on to screens with no obstructions with no notches and things

like this and originally you had the motorized camera was the first version of that but it was

a little bit slow and then people wondered about the long-term durability of a motorized

front-facing camera and then this is the next phase in my estimation this is the next place

that we go we attempt they they find a way to sit it underneath your screen in such a fashion that

you won't notice at all we are not completely there yet i can notice this i can see the different

pixel weave, particularly against these light backgrounds. Whether it's more or less distracting

to you than a front-facing hole punch or notch, well, that's going to be a personal preference

But strictly from a technological perspective, I think it is kind of a marvel to be able to

utilize a camera without seeing the camera itself. Even if that means seeing a slight

discrepancy in the way the display looks this to me does feel like the future once they are capable

of absolutely nailing it and so it's kind of cool to hold on to what is the very first

commercially available version of this brand new technology