Letsgodigital website has published patent images of a smartphone with a very interesting design, which may soon be put into production at the Wingtech factory at the request of Xiaomi. The source adds that Xiaomi manufactures around 75% of its products in collaboration with ODM manufacturers. In addition, these companies have been cooperating for a long time.
These images were created from sketches that appeared in the databases of the National Intellectual Property Office of China and the World Intellectual Property Office.
The described smartphone has a wraparound display that takes up almost the entire front and rear panel. In fact, the display in this “half-folded” state has only three tiny frames: top, bottom and one side.
The camera must be retractable so that the screen does not have any cutouts and holes. The large unit includes three camera sensors and an LED flash. It can also be in use to take selfies.
The power button is located on the bottom panel of the device, there is also a SIM card slot, a USB-C connector and a loudspeaker hole.
We do not know if this smartphone will go into mass production, but if it does, it will definitely attract a lot of attention.
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Xiaomi patents a phone with a detachable display
Modularity in phones has so far been limited to attaching a speaker, charger to a smartphone. However, Xiaomi is looking to take it to a whole new level. It has recently patented a display that can be detached from the shell of the device and probably used wirelessly.
The patent, as identified by LetsGoDigital, has been published in China’s Intellectual Property Administration(CNIPA). Its application was on March 31, 2020. Xiaomi has sketches of the two-part mechanisms with nearly 22 product images in it.
Speaking of which, the device has two parts- the main ‘body’ part and the detachable ‘screen’ part. The body part seems to be thicker than the screen which is obvious. But the interesting part is the full-screen display without a punch-hole or pop-up cutout for the cameras. It’s also likely that the display would have its own battery but that isn’t clear here.
Xiaomi smartphone with a detachable display
This makes us believe that the device might sport an under-screen camera solution. This is further revealed in the patent as the body without screen shows the dual-selfie shooters with a bigger cutout which could be an LED flashlight.
If this turns out to be true, it will be surprising to see how Xiaomi implements the functionality of a flashlight beneath the screen.
Moving on, the rear display and the body’s front view in the patent reveals a pair of connectors each with 10 pins on them. However, we do not know what type of connector Xiaomi plans to use here to achieve the modularity.
Apart from this, there is a USB-C port, Speaker and Microphone grills at the bottom. There are volume buttons and a power button to the right. While the SIM card is on the left. The rear of the device has a triple-camera setup vertically stacked with a flashlight beneath them.
