Xiaomi Files Patent Application for a New Way of Using Slide Cameras on Smartphones

The Chinese electronics company headquartered in Beijing, Xiaomi Corporation, has quite recently filed a Patent Application, which shows that the company is efficiently working on a brand new way of effectively increasing the screen-to-body ratio on smartphones. The Patent Filing shows a sliding camera module on the backside, which, in turn, puts the rear and front cameras on the back of the smartphone.

The design submitted has a vertical strip on the backside that has three cameras. One is the front camera, and the remaining two are rear cameras. The pictures in the patent filing point to two visible modules of the camera on the backside and one another spot, which is left open. This open spot is for the rare module to slide up over the edge of the smartphone conveniently. Therefore, specifically, the front camera peeks out from the top of the smartphone.

Without any second thoughts, a design like this would enable Xiaomi to remove all bezels from the screen. Earlier as well, the smartphone company has made use of under-display proximity sensors and mics in its Mi Mix smartphones; hence, coming up with a slide-up module now implies that the company can produce a 95% plus screen-to-body ratio.

It is a matter of fact that yes – reducing the screen-to-body ratio is a work in progress for almost every other smartphone company out there at present; for instance – OnePlus has recently adopted the punch-hole cameras for the front side, and Apple has been efficiently working on reducing the notch on the iPhones.

The patent filing has not yet mentioned the kind of camera resolution that Xiaomi will be able to use efficiently in this scenario. In its latest flagships, the company has used 108MP cameras, and it generally uses 64MP or 48MP sensors on all its smartphones nowadays. With a slide-up module, the smartphone company might now be able to make the most out of the high-resolution sensors for the front cameras as well.

The concept of sliding cameras is undoubtedly not an entirely new one. Samsung and Oppo have, in the past, used sliding cameras to increase the screen-to-body ratio. In this scenario, however, the entire backplate with the camera module slides upwards and also uses one of the rear cameras as the front camera. The Taiwan-based multinational electronics company, Asus, has also used a camera module that flips on the Asus Zenfone 6.