Vivo Unveils APEX Full-Screen Phone, Half Screen Fingerprint Unlock

At the Mobile World Congress, Chinese smartphone manufacturer Vivo presented a brand-new full-screen mobile phone named APEX. On March 5, Vivo formally introduced APEX at an exclusive media conference at the Hangzhou New Technology Institute.

Based on the screen fingerprint identification technology in the X20 Plus, APEX upgraded screen fingerprint technology to a half-screen unlocking scheme. Users could unlock the phone by touching anywhere within the lower-half screen to authenticate the fingerprint.

APEX also features an increased screen-to-body ratio and automatic pop-up camera.

Up to 98 Percent Screen-to-Body Ratio

Over the past two years, Vivo has been improving the full-screen design. APEX adopts a 5.99-inch 1080P screen, uses flexible OLED and further reduces screen margins. The upper, left and right margins are all 1.8 mm, which are the narrowest in the industry. The bottom margin is 4.33 mm. According to Vivo, APEX’s screen-to-body ratio is 98 percent. The phone thickness is about 7.8 mm.

Vivo uses full-screen sound technology to replace the receiver. Although there is no receiver, sound can be passed from the actuator, the body, the glass and finally to users through screen vibration. This design consumes less power.

The starting speed of automatic pop-up camera is 0.8 seconds.

Another breakthrough for Vivo APEX is the camera, which features an automatic pop-up lens for the first time. This way, the front camera won’t impede the screen space. The front camera will reside hidden inside the phone until the user chooses to take photos, at which point it will pop up. Vivo says it only takes 0.8 seconds for the camera to pop up.

Screen Fingerprint Technology Upgrades to Half-Screen Unlock

Previously, Vivo had announced the mass production of the screen fingerprint technology seen in the X20 Plus. This technology has a bottleneck in which users can unlock the phone by placing their fingers only onto a fixed position. The Vivo APEX is equipped with half-screen fingerprint identification technology. Users could unlock the phone without looking for a fixed fingerprint input position. Anywhere within the lower part of the screen can identify the fingerprint and then unlock the phone.

Vivo said that the multi-point screen fingerprint technology allows users to unlock more conveniently, with faster fingerprint recognition speed and higher security. Vivo APEX also comes with a dual-fingerprint recognition unlock function. In this mode, the private space won’t be unlocked unless the two people both touch the screen.

Reduce the Area without Sacrificing Sound Quality

Audio is also upgraded in the APEX. In order to ensure the HiFi sound quality, APEX uses SIP technology. SIP integrates a variety of functional chips, including processing and memory chips, into a single package to achieve comprehensive function. APEX has a DAC decoder chip and three op-chips, and reduced their size by about 60 percent. The design brings more possibilities for the internal space design of full-screen mobile phone in the future.

The Vivo APEX is equipped with the Snapdragon 845 processor with 6 GB RAM and the Funtouch OS 3.2 operating system. According to Vivo, some technologies on APEX concept machines will be mass-produced around June this year.

In addition, Vivo explained that its latest Super HDR photography technology enables better backlighting effects. The technology has not been used in any Vivo mobile phone before.

Vivo also said that the Super HDR technology makes use of AI. Through scenario recognition, shooting strategy, frame selection strategy and optimization strategy, the HDR technology produces better pictures.

This article originally appeared in Tencent Tech and was translated by Pandaily.