Renders show ZTE Axon S with sideways camera slider and Axon V with bulge
The iF design website contains renders of ZTE smartphones that process the front cameras outside the screen in a new way. The Axon S has a slider on the side and with the Axon V the camera protrudes permanently on the side.
According to the description on the iF World Design Guide website, the ZTE Axon S and Axon V will be released this year, but ZTE has not yet announced anything about the phones. The design website may have put the renders online too early.
Both smartphones have a screen that takes up almost the entire front, without a notch or hole for the front camera. ZTE opts for a slider mechanism on the side with the Axon S, which contains two front cameras and a volume slider, which seems to work with a touch-sensitive surface. The fingerprint scanner is integrated behind the screen. The three cameras on the back are hidden when the slider is folded. To use them, the slider must be moved to the side.
According to the description, the three cameras on the back offer 5x optical zoom. It is probably three cameras with different focal lengths, so no actual zoom. The renders contain numbers that presumably indicate the aperture, from a maximum of f/1.7 to f/2.4, the latter will apply to the telephoto lens. The numbers 3.8 and 19 refer to the focal lengths for the wide-angle and telephoto lenses, because dividing the longest distance by the shortest results in a ‘zoom range’ of 5x. The range in full frame equivalent is not yet known. The Axon S will get a 48-megapixel sensor, presumably for the primary camera.
There are already several smartphones on the market with a slider mechanism for the cameras, but until now it was all about a slider at the top of the device. Examples include the Vivo Nex, the Oppo Find X, the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3, Honor Magic 2 and the Lenovo Z5 Pro.
The second smartphone that comes out via the iF website is the ZTE Axon V, a model that according to the description has a 6.8 “OLED panel with a 21:9 ratio. Also in this screen there is no notch; ZTE places the cameras in a bulge on the side, which appears to be a physical bulge that cannot be hidden. This also provides more space for a larger battery, according to ZTE, but the battery capacity is unknown.
According to the screenshots on the devices, they both support 5G. It is not clear when the Chinese manufacturer will announce or release the phones. It is also unknown whether the phones will come to the Benelux, although it does state on the iF website that they are also intended for the European market.