Vivo has been at the forefront when it comes to introducing completely new smartphone designs, like we have already seen in the Vivo Nex (Review), Vivo Apex 2019 and Vivo Nex 3 with Waterfall FullView Display. According to the latest development, the Chinese tech giant is working on another out-of-the-box smartphone that will have not one, not two but four punch-hole cameras in addition to a triple camera system on the back panel. As per a report by TigerMobiles, the company has filed a patent with the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) for a smartphone with four punch hole cameras on the front.
The patent has schematics that show three ways to implement this design. The first one shows that the company would place one camera in each corner of the phone’s display. In the second scenario, the display would have two pill-shaped punch-holes with two cameras each placed on the display’s right and left corners. The third case is a lot similar to the second one. The only difference could be two punch hole cameras on the two ends of the display, but without the pill shaped cutout. As mentioned, on the back is a triple rear camera setup with a flash.
Punch-hole displays and triple cameras are a regular these days. The punch-hole design was introduced by Samsung at its annual conference in 2018, and the company called it an Infinity-O design. Since then, various OEMs have adopted it in a bid to deliver edge-to-edge display for better content consumption experience. The concept of triple cameras was introduced in Huawei Mate 20, and since then smartphone manufacturers have gone to create handsets with up to five cameras on the back (Nokia 9 PureView).
Vivo’s concept looks interesting, but it raises a question: What’s the need of four cameras on the front? Vivo devices have always been loaded with selfie-related features but a phone having four front cameras sound bizarre at this time. The rising camera mechanism in Vivo Nex was a welcome change, the Apex gave us a peek into the future and Nex 3 is another option if you are into curved display smartphones. It is yet to be determined that what purpose having four front cameras situated in all corners of the display will serve.