Samsung Wants To Make A Secondary Display Covering The Selfie Camera To Achieve True All-Screen Smartphones

Smartphones these days come in a few similar designs. They all have a large, glass-protected display, featuring tiny bezels. While an iPhone comes with a cutout bezel that houses its Face ID hardware, an Android handset may have a hole at the top providing room for one or two front-facing lenses. However, none of them is perfect as the ideal design for phone makers is the one with no holes or notches.

There have been several approaches to achieve this goal, including an under-display camera that’s placed beneath the screen. And now Samsung is working on an initiative of its own.

Instead of comping up with an algorithm to fix videos and photos captured with the under-display camera, the Korean phone maker has created a slide-up OLED panel to cover the front-facing camera when it’s not in use. This concept is illustrated in the latest patent of the company, which shows how the secondary screen would work.

Samsung’s concept is similar to the pop-up camera mechanism that has been around for years. This time, however, the moving part is the screen, not the camera. When users need the camera, the secondary display will be lowered. Otherwise, it can be raised to cover the lens. This also means you cannot use the selfie camera when the display is raised but the contraption would let light travel freely to the camera.

The patent also illustrates that the small display can move automatically once the camera is triggered or controlled with the side-button. Users can also interact with the secondary display through the touchscreen to initiate movement manually. The secondary display will show information like battery status, time, or notifications.

Lastly, the patent showcases that the S Pen stylus can be used on the secondary display.

As interesting as it may seem, there are always some challenges when it comes to new concepts and initiatives. In this case, the concern is with durability. Not only the mechanism is prone to damage from moving up and down thousands of times, but dust and debris can also accumulate on it through an opening. In the coming time, we hope to see how Samsung will make sure this will not happen as well as other innovative ideas to achieve a truly all-screen smartphone.

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