Smartphone Trend: Pop-Out Cameras

4 min readJun 25, 2018

Top Left: Vivo Nex, June 12, 2018, photo: techradar. Top right: Oppo Find X June 29, 2018, photo: The Verge. Bottom: Huawei Honor 7i August 2015, photo: Huawei

One of the interesting trends happening with smartphones today is the addition of pop-out cameras. The challenge of adding and servicing a mechanical feature on a smartphone has not seemed to diminish any of the enthusiasm of today’s gadget lovers. Further, the benefits of keeping your cameras clean (on the recent models) and not feeling “watched” all the time by your phone’s camera, provides a lot of appeal. Here is a side-by-side comparison of three smartphones called the Find X, Nex, and Honor 7i to get you up to speed on the topic.

The Oppo Find X

*GIF of* ***Oppo Find X*** *by Amelia Holowaty Krales at The Verge****[1]***

Oppo Find X (Paris launch — June 19, 2018[2]; China launch — June 29, 2018) is an Android smartphone with a “Panoramic Arc Screen”, glass back, and a top that glides smoothly out to feature a “3D Stealth Camera”, leaving zero holes or other features visible on the front or back panel. YouTube videos about the Find X are trending on staple tech channels like Unbox Therapy[3] and MKBHD[4] because the visual effect of the slider motion, and the flawless front and back, are mesmerizing.

Oppo was established in 2004 and started making phones in 2008. In 2017 IDC rated Oppo 4th in the global market and 2nd in the Chinese market, and this year Oppo is expanding to France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands [5]

The Vivo Nex S

***Vivo Nex S*** *Image from techradar****[6]***

*Image from* *https://www.myfixguide.com/vivo-nex-teardown/*

Vivo Nex S (June 12, 2018 release) is an Android smartphone featuring an all-screen display (with no notch) [7], a pop-up selfie cam, and a sweet under-glass fingerprint sensor[8].

Vivo’s AI, which is called Jovi[9], has a dedicated on-screen button and can get more info about what’s on your screen with the help of image recognition.

MyFixGuide has an intriguing tear-down of the Vivo Nex so that you can see how the spring works.[10]

According to IDC, Vivo is only slightly behind Oppo in smartphone sales, both worldwide and in China[11].

The Huawei Honor 7i

Huawei Honor 7i (released August 2015) is included here simply as a reminder that pop out cameras in Android smartphones are not entirely new. Released nearly 3 years ago, the Honor 7i has only one camera, which pops up in reverse to act as a selfie camera. Clearly brilliant, as most smartphones at the time only boasted up to 8 MP selfie cameras. By utilizing the main camera as the selfie camera, the user could harness the powerful 13 MP camera for great selfies as well.

As a company, Huawei has been manufacturing mobile phones since 1997[12] and is also the largest telecom infrastructure maker in the world. Further, Huawei led both Oppo and Vivo in 2017 smartphone sales, and is currently challenging both Samsung and Apple in Europe[13] in 2018.

Christina Cyr is CEO of dTOOR Inc. SPC, which specializes in “Non-Rectangular Phones for Non-Rectangular People” starting with a phone in the shape of a circle, called The Cyrcle Phone. In September 2016 dTOOR successfully launched a 2G version of The Cyrcle Phone to test the market (pictured here). Since then dTOOR has been working on the 4G Android version of The Cyrcle Phone.