Huawei, ZTE e BOE would be working together to fight Samsung by developing a new OLED panel for foldable cell phones with a camera under the display, as suggested by the most recent rumor released by the renowned leaker Digital Chat Station. According to the informant, the component would make use of the promising technology found in the Axon family, possibly being able to offer a truly invisible selfie lens without drastically affecting the quality of the photos.
Greater responsible for popularizing foldables, Samsung was also the first to bring camera technology under the display to the segment with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3, seen at the time only in traditional smartphones. The reception was not very positive: the density of pixels in the region was low, while the size of each of them was large enough to be noticed, preventing the area from blending naturally into the rest of the panel. The situation improved with the Galaxy Z Fold 4, but the photo quality was still poor.
With an eye on this, Huawei may have partnered with ZTE and BOE Display – Samsung Display’s Chinese competitor – to develop a new flexible OLED panel that would challenge the South Korean giant. How do you explain Digital Chat Station, the trio would already have a functional prototype, recently demonstrated in China, with the ZTE Q8 panel. Of unknown dimensions, the component would have a resolution of 2480 x 1116 pixels and 1,440 Hz of PWM dimming, ensuring visual comfort even when the brightness is low.
The highlight, obviously, is the camera feature under the display, which would use an evolution of technology found in the ZTE Axon 50 family, praised for practically making the sensor invisible, while delivering a reasonable quality of photography. That said, the most curious point is that Huawei should be responsible for officially debuting the panel, with the supposed Mate X4, taking into account that ZTE does not have a line of foldable cell phones at the moment.
There are no details about the device, but considering that the Huawei Mate X3 was announced just a month ago, in March 2023, it is very likely that we will have to wait at least 6 months or even a year for the debut of the fourth generation of the phone and consequently of the new panel, if the Chinese giant maintains the schedule it practiced in previous generations. Until then, the expectation is that Samsung has improved its own displays, but it remains to be seen whether the company will remain truly competitive.
Source: Digital Chat Station (in Chinese), via GSMArena
