What you need to know
- Samsung Display teased its under-display camera technology on a laptop.
- The camera allows the laptop to have incredibly thin bezels.
- The display is also thinner and lighter than previous models.
Samsung Display recently teased its new under-display camera technology on a laptop. The teaser video shows off a laptop with an incredibly thin bezel that comes thanks to the device's webcam being under the display. Samsung calls it an "Under Panel Camera" (UPC) in the teaser and its part of the Samsung Blade Bezel design. We've seen under-display cameras before, but only on smartphones like the ZTE Axon 20 5G.
You can find the video on Samsung Display's Weibo page or check it out in a tweet shared by Twitter user Ice Universe.
Wow ⊙∀⊙! Samsung Display reveals its under-Display camera technology for the first time, which will be used for OLED notebook screens first pic.twitter.com/Fu4UblvsruWow ⊙∀⊙! Samsung Display reveals its under-Display camera technology for the first time, which will be used for OLED notebook screens first pic.twitter.com/Fu4Ublvsru— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) January 14, 2021January 14, 2021
Having a camera hidden behind a display opens up new possibilities for laptop designs. Over the year's we've seen companies try different ways to trim down bezels while still having a camera on a laptop. The Huawei MateBook X Pro has a camera inside the keyboard, but that led to an awkward angle for video calls. The Dell XPS 13 used to have its camera in a bezel below its display, but eventually swapped over to one above the display.
Dell's XPS 13 9310 also has an incredibly thin bezel, but it has its camera inside the top bezel. Samsung Display's UPC technology appears to trim the bezel even more by placing the camera behind the display.
In addition to the UPC tech facilitating thinner bezels, the new display is only 1mm thick and weighs just 130g.
At this point, the technology we've seen for under-display camera yields lower quality images, but it will likely improve over time. We also haven't seen Samsung's latest UPC tech in action.
Samsung Display provides screens to several laptop manufacturers. Many of the best Windows laptops feature displays from Samsung. Once Samsung's UPC technology is more refined, we could see it on devices from several companies.
