In the case of the APEX demo device, in particular, the top and side bezels around the display measure only 1.8mm, while the bottom one is just 4.3mm.
Another potentially game-changing feature vivo is showcasing in the APEX is a world-first half-screen, in-display fingerprint scanning technology. It is a logical next step, building on the in-display, single spot technology in the
vivo X20 Plus UD smartphone. The technology is similar and optical in nature, the main difference being, you can put your finger anywhere in the bottom half of the display to read the print.
Technological similarities in mind, it comes as no surprise that the APEX uses an OLED panel and blasts its backlight intensely during scans to allow for the reader itself to see your reflected fingerprint pattern. Just like on the X20 Plus UD, the process feels really sci-fi, but still has some limitations and kicks to work out. For one, you do have to press on the screen relatively hard, probably to spread out the skin, separate the lines and get them as close to the reader as possible. Speed and accuracy are also not great in the current state of the tech. It's clearly not ready for prime time in an actual end-user product, but it's getting there.
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There are a couple of other interesting aspects about the APEX as well. Since vivo's new nearly edge-to-edge display leaves almost no room for anything else on the front, innovative solutions were in order to turn the APEX into a functional phone. For one, you need an earpiece. To that end, vivo has a new Screen SoundCasting Technology. It vibrates the entire screen to produce sound like a speaker. It is quite reminiscent of the original
Xiaomi Mi Mix, only louder, since vivo is leveraging it as both a speaker and an earpiece.
This meant we could hold the demo unit in any orientation we desired and still have a conversation. That includes holding the back side up to our year. To our surprise, the APEX still managed to figure out what we are doing and turn off its display, regardless of whether we were covering the under-display proximity sensor or not. The only downside to this mode of operation is that you can't really expect to have private conversations. The Xiaomi Mi Mix has similar issues as well.
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Last, but not least on the interesting innovations list is vivo's solution to the selfie camera problem. Namely, that you can't realistically fit one on the front of the device. The answer here is a motorised, periscope-style module on the top bezel of the phone. 8MP, in the demo unit. Whenever you switch to the selfie camera, it extends up in just 0.8 seconds, then closes neatly back up. It was loads of fun to play around with, even with the included, extremely bare-bones camera app.
