We have seen notches, pop up cameras, sliding cameras and holes punched in the display in an attempt to still have a front-facing camera and a full screen display. Essential, Andy Rubin’s company, is apparently working on a different solution to the notch that we have not seen yet.
The folks at Slashgear have found themselves with a set of images from Essential that show not only will there be a second Essential phone bit it will have a novel solution to the notch. These drawings they got their hands on showed that the Essential PH-2 will not have a notch — Essential were one of the first to bring a notch and full screen display.
The solution to still have a selfie camera is to hide it behind the display. The drawings show that there will be at least one camera and one light sensor underneath the display. But how do they get light to each of them I hear you say. The display becomes semi-transparent upon command to allow enough light through for the function of those sensors underneath the display. Novel solution indeed.
Apparently Essential are testing both AMOLED and LCD displays with this technology but apparently are favouring the AMOLED display due to it’s “advanced features”.
Not only will the light sensor and selfie camera be under the display but so will be the fingerprint sensor. Most flagship premium phones are arriving with in-display fingerprint sensors so this is no surprise. There is no information whether they will use Qualcomm’s ultrasonic solution or the Synaptic optical (light) sensor solution.
This week there has also been an appearance of the name PH-2 in US smartphone carrier. Given that the PH-1 has improved immensely over time you would hope that they have learnt a lot about the software process.
Essential’s first phone was a great looking phone so hopefully they back that up with a great PH-2. We expect to see this announced in the coming months and you can be sure we will see and hear more about it before then.
