Xiaomi isn’t the only company trying out interesting ideas for smartphone pop-up cameras as suggested by filed patents. Korean giant Samsung is also trying to find the perfect smartphone camera design so that a phone’s display is completely free of notches and perforated cameras, while still allowing the user to take high-quality selfies. The patent filed by Samsung in mid-2020 was recently published by the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Office), featuring a Galaxy phone with a main camera module on the back, which can alternately rise and rotate to look at the user.
Now thanks LetsGoDigital and The Concept Creator’s 3D renderings shown below let us see what a Samsung Galaxy smartphone could look like.
The idea here is not much different from what we saw implemented on the Asus ZenFone 7 Pro back in 2020. We have a main camera module, which can turn over if necessary to look at the user and also take selfies. Thanks to this solution, the front of the phone does not have to have any notches or cut-outs for the selfie camera to obstruct the screen. But more importantly, doubling your main camera as your selfie camera can yield much higher quality selfies! The way Samsung envisions the solution is with a long and somewhat cylindrical camera module with three cameras. These will take the usual photos and videos, but when the user switches to selfie mode, a motorized mechanism will rotate and raise the camera module enough to point the top camera towards the user.
Realistically, we cannot strongly hope that this Samsung patent will lead to a real phone with such a camera. It often happens that major smartphone manufacturers file patents for ideas and products that never make it. As cool as it is, a motorized pop-up camera module normally brings up the problem of reduced phone durability.
Either way, it’s always fun and informative to see what ideas the designers behind our favorite phone brands come up with and consider.