The punch hole design first surfaced late last year. Expected to be the trend this year, most manufacturers have stuck to notches and pop-up selfie cameras. Most of the phones with a punch-hole display have been from the same manufacturers that pioneered the design and they are Huawei and Samsung. However, 2020 may actually be the year of the punch hole as more manufacturers will be adopting the design. ZTE may be among the adopters too but their design is unlike any we have seen.
A patent filed by the company at the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) in April 2019 was published a few days ago. The patent which is for a “display panel, camera device, terminal, and screen manufacturing method” describes a phone with a really small punch hole camera.
The size of the hole isn’t the interesting part but where it is located. Rather than placing it in the middle of the screen or in the corner as we have seen on the Galaxy Note 10 and Huawei Nova 5i respectively, the punch hole is nestled between the network and battery icons at the top of the screen. You can still say it is positioned in the corner but it is different since the hole is smaller and the icons flanking it on each side make it less noticeable.
LetsGoDigital has created renders based on the patent description to give us an idea of the design but the final product may be different.
The punch hole design isn’t the only thing about the patent. The description also mentions the phone will not have a traditional earpiece but will use Sound-on-Display technology. We have seen this technology appear on a number of phones such as the LG G8 ThinQ and the Galaxy A80. This technology vibrates the display to transmit sound and allows for a more full-screen device.
The Axon 10 Pro is ZTE’s flagship for 2019. It has an affordable price tag that made it a contender for the “flagship killer” title when it launched, runs near-stock Android on the international version, has a curved AMOLED display, triple cameras with optical zoom and support for wireless charging. We expect its successor will come with better features and hope it retains its affordable price tag.
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