ZTE’s latest under-display selfie camera looks slightly improvedنة

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Last year, ZTE’s Axon 20 5G was the first commercially available phone in the world to put a front camera under its screen. It was a great step forward for phone technology but there was one big problem: the camera is full. You took poor pictures and the unit distorted the display at certain settings. Now, ZTE is trying again with the updated Axon 30, which appears to offer some improvements over its predecessor.

First, unpack a little spec. The Axon 30 has a 6.92-inch AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and FHD+ resolution, all powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 870 5G chipset. There’s a four-camera array on the back of the device, with a 64MP main, 8MP 120-degree wide-angle lens, a 5MP macro lens, and an additional depth-of-field lens. The battery has a capacity of 4200mAh and 55W fast charging, and according to GSMArena, you have options of 6GB/8GB/12GB of RAM and 128GB/256GB of UFS 3.1 storage.

But the Axon 30’s most interesting update is the camera at the bottom of the screen. For these under-screen display units to work, you have to use transparent materials in that area of ​​the screen, which is a fairly recent development and has lower quality compared to the normal display technology. For the Axon 30, ZTE says it doubled the pixel density in this region from 200 PPI to 400 PPI, making for a smoother integration with the screen.

Under-display comparison of the Axon 20 (left) and the Axon 30 (right). Photo: ZTE via GSMArena

ZTE says it has also improved the camera located under the screen itself. You can see in our hands-on training with the Axon 20 last year that images from this camera were blurry and soft in good lighting, and made a lot of noise in poor lighting. The camera was a great technical feat, sure, but it’s not on par with a regular front lens. Based on the screenshot below, from popular phone detective Ice Universe (also known as UniverseIce), there might be some improvements with the Axon 30.

Obviously we’ll have to wait until we try the phone ourselves to give you a full evaluation, but don’t hold your breath for any miracles. As Ice Universe notes, the photo above was taken outdoors with lots of light, in response to a Twitter user who suggested they try the camera in worse conditions, Ice Universe responds: “Such a poor performance.”

Another image from Ice indicates that the camera under the screen is also visible when the screen is off, but that’s not a big deal.

The ZTE Axon 30 is launching in China first, with GSMArena stating that sales will start on August 3. Pricing starts at CNY 2,198 ($338) for the 6GB/128GB model and CNY3,098 ($476) for the 12GB/256GB version. Global availability and pricing to come later.

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