Chinese manufacturer is working on game phone with ‘pressure-sensitive touchscreen’

The Chinese manufacturer iQOO is working on a game phone with a pressure-sensitive touchscreen. The manufacturer, a brand of Vivo and therefore affiliated with Oppo, Realme and OnePlus, wants to present the phone next week.

The feature is called Monster Touch, the manufacturer writes on Weibo. The intention is to make the left and right sides of the touchscreen pressure sensitive in landscape mode to simulate buttons in games. How that works exactly is unknown.

Several game phones have different controls. Some models have triggers that consist of touch-sensitive parts of the side, for example. That is the case with Nubia’s Red Magic models, among others. A Xiaomi Black Shark model has physical shoulder buttons.

The technology of a pressure-sensitive touchscreen is anything but new. The best-known application is Apple’s 3D Touch, which has been in iPhones and Apple Watch models for years, among other things. This is no longer the case in new models.

The iQOO 7 would also have a dual vibration motor, a 120Hz OLED screen, a 4000mAh battery that can be charged with 120W in the most expensive model, Lpddr5 memory and UFS 3.1 storage. The soc would be a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. The presentation is scheduled for next Monday.