Asus exploring phone designs with pop-up camera and punch-hole display

Future Asus devices could feature either a pop-up camera or a punch-hole display, new patent filings made by the Taiwanese manufacturer suggests. Earlier this week, Asus filed various design patents with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO).

The patents revealed two possible designs for future Asus smartphones, one with a pop-up camera and one with a punch-hole display. In the patent filing, the two main designs are further broken into three different variants each. Both designs follow the pursuit to deliver the maximum amount of screen real-estate without sacrificing the front camera.

The first smartphone to feature a pop-up camera was the Vivo Nex which had its selfie camera hidden in a motorised pop-up mechanism. Then came the Oppo Find X which feature a slider mechanism that hides both the front and rear cameras.

Punch-hole display phones are phones with a hole through the display area. This is different from a notch as the display wraps around the hole. Several manufacturers are exploring this design and it looks like punch-hole displays will be the trend for a lot of phones coming in 2019. Two of the earliest phones to feature punch-hole displays are the Samsung Galaxy A8s and the Huawei Nova 4.

Expect Asus to announce its newest smartphones at Mobile World Congress 2019 that is scheduled to happen end February.

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