The first smartphone with an under-glass selfie camera went on sale in China in September, but the ZTE Axon 20 5G wasn’t widely available in other regions at the time. That will change soon.
ZTE has announced that the phone will be available in parts of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia starting December 21. Unsurprisingly one place you wont’ be able to easily buy the phone is the United States – where the government regulators have designated ZTE as a national security threat.
The Axon 20 5G features a 6.92 inch, 2460 x 1080 pixel OLED display that covers most of the front of the phone thanks to slim bezels and the lack of any holes or notches for a front-facing camera.
Instead there’s a 32MP camera underneath the the display that’s designed to shoot photos through the screen. A handful of companies have been showing off this type of technology for the past year or so, but ZTE is the first to make it available in a commercially available device.
There have typically been some trade-offs to this style of design. The display area over the camera may look noticeably different from the rest of the screen under close inspection. And photos may not look quite as good as you’d expect from a phone with an unobstructed camera. But this may be a good compromise for those who prefer a smooth display area over high-quality selfies or video calls.
The phone’s other specs include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G processor, at 4,220 mAh battery, 30W fast charging, an under-glass fingerprint sensor, and under-glass speakers.
On the back of the phone there are four cameras: 64MP primary, 8MP wide-angle, 2MP macro, and 2MP depth-sensing, and the phone will be available in 6GB RAM/128GB storage and 8GB/256GB variants. Both feature a microSD card reader for removable storage.
In China, the ZTE Axon 20 5G sells for around $320 and up, but it will likely carry a higher price tag in other markets.
via @ZTEDevice