The year 2018 was not easy for ZTE since a Chinese embargo was imposed on it in April. The situation was so bad that it appeared that the company may end its operations. It managed to overcome its rough patch when the ban was removed in July last year. While the company was going through a tough time, it continued to develop new technologies. On July 10, 2018, the Chinese firm had applied for a smartphone design patent. The patent was published in the previous week by the CNIPA patent agency of China. The patent documents reveal images of a smartphone with full-screen design on the front and a secondary display on its rear.
The patent images show that the frontside of the smartphone is mainly occupied by the display with a very slim-sized china. The front image suggests that the smartphone will offer around 95 percent of screen space. The front camera of the smartphone is not visible. Could it be sporting an under-display front camera?
Probably, the ZTE phone shown in patent illustrations could be also sporting the front camera tech, but there is no confirmation on it in the patent documents. The rear design of the ZTE smartphone shows that it is equipped with a squared-shaped second display on its rear. The presence of a secondary screen on the device suggests that it won’t be featuring a front camera at all. The powerful rear cameras along with the secondary display will allow the smartphone to capture topnotch selfie shots.
The rear design of the above shown ZTE phone reminds of the Meizu PRO 7 Plus smartphone from 2017 that featured a rectangular second screen below its horizontally arranged dual camera setup. Its second screen could work as a camera viewfinder and it could also show notifications.
Coming back to the ZTE phone, the design of its camera module suggests that it could be housing three camera sensors. There is an LED flash for the rear camera system. The right side of the smartphone has a volume rocker and a power key. There is another button available on the left spine of the device. The bottom edge of the smartphone features a USB-C slot positioned between a pair of external speakers. It does not feature a 3.5mm audio jack and its upper edge seems to only be equipped with a microphone.
While ZTE has been granted for a smartphone with dual display design, it remains to be seen whether it will release a phone such a design this year.
