We have a serious love-hate relationship with the front cameras on our phones. Of course, everyone loves taking selfies and their popularity has helped propel several social media sites into the stratosphere. But the cameras themselves are so annoying, taking up precious space on the phone, and stealing more and more space from the screen itself. An innovative solution is to tuck the front panel under the screen, as seen on the all new ZTE Axon 20 5G. Now, JerryRigEverything’s Zack is putting this model to the test, seeing how it stands up to abuse and also giving us a better insight into how this weird camera works.

Honestly, the durability test isn’t really the interesting part of this video, and we’re mainly interested in the underscreen camera technology. Naturally, this is a bit noticeable in various conditions, but maybe not in a distracting way.

Close-ups show that the area above the camera is less pixel dense than the surrounding screen, and when fully lit you can just make out the spaces that let in light. Animations moving in this area sometimes seem a bit choppy, which can be a consequence of the aliasing and lower resolution here.

We also get to see sample images and, unsurprisingly, the quality suffers from this camera arrangement. The bright lights pick up a pronounced halo and there is a diffused quality to everything, as if the screen is diffracting over light sources.

Selfie quality of the Axon 20 (left) against Note10 + (right)

Before it starts ringing too negative, remember that this technology is still in its infancy, and just as foldable screen phones are already improving a lot, it may take a generation or two for under-screen cameras to really start making their way. a name.