The Axon 30 with Under Display Camera: Hands-on Mini-Review
by Andrei Frumusanu on September 3, 2021 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- ZTE
- Axon 30
Battery Life - A Horrible Downgrade
With a 4200mAh battery, the Axon 30 has around 8% less capacity than the Axon 30 Ultra. The Snapdragon 870 is more power efficient than the newer Snapdragon 888 in our testing, so what that leaves out in terms of unknowns is the display panel from Visionox.
Unfortunately, in our web test at 120Hz, the Axon 30 falls face flat with one of the worst results of any device we’ve tested recently. The reason for this is I suspect the display panel. At 120Hz, the phone has a baseline black screen power consumption of around 800mW, and at 60Hz it’s still an abysmal 695mW, far above the norm of any other phone.
I don’t have confirmation on which DDIC vendor ZTE and Visionox are using here, but the behaviour here reminds me of the horrible power consumption characteristics of LG and BOE screens of the past.
The more SoC and CPU bound PCMark tests allows the Axon 30 to narrow the gap a little more as the display plays a smaller percentage of power used, and while adequate, it’s still quite behind the Axon 30 Ultra and other competing devices.
Generally, the battery life here is very likely tied to the choice of display panel provider as we’ve seen this story repeated quite a lot over the years as third-party OLED vendors besides Samsung Display struggle to achieve power efficient panels and DDIC solutions.
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GreenReaper - Friday, September 3, 2021 - link
It seems what is essential to this phone is invisible to the eye... except at an angle.Kangal - Friday, September 3, 2021 - link
The implementation would have been more convincing if the UDC was on the Top-Left Corner. There needs to be some software/OS feature built-in to actually "black out" that section when the Front Camera is in use. Not just for the Stock Camera, but for other Apps like openCamera and Snapchat etc etc. On top of this, I think it requires a slightly better front camera (sharper camera, larger sensor).Portrait mode; the UDC might be hidden by the icons in the notification bar. And when the Notification Bar isn't displayed, that entire section could just be a colour that blends in with the content.
Landscape mode; that corner is mostly un-used. Think of most movies, that section is more like the blindspot. So here, the subtle differences, will also be masked.
Overall, they've done great with the UDC implementation, camera choice, 4MP downsampling, post-processing, and the adequately sharp 1080p display. Can't wait for this to get even better.
Samus - Sunday, September 5, 2021 - link
Kangal took the thoughts out of my brain bone: if they put this in a top corner its much more "transparent" to the user.Either way, the under screen camera implementation is far more impressive than I thought it would be going into the article, and honestly the 4MP output is totally adequate unless you are actually taking selfies with the front camera.
sharath.naik - Monday, September 6, 2021 - link
Why do these manufacturers feel the need to do under display camera? It is at best horrible, NO ONE IS ASKING FOR IT. It is baffling the level of nonsensical decision making that goes into going into this direction. The display cut out is Already small enough to be a nonissue.Round cutouts are that are small enough and in the center are absolutely fine. Even having a small bezel at the top and bottom to accommodate the camera and front Firing speakers are even better. No one is asking for Zero bezel at the top and bottom, let alone an under display camera.
CampGareth - Tuesday, September 7, 2021 - link
"NO ONE IS ASKING FOR IT"Hello, I am a human being and I am asking for under-display cameras. I bought a galaxy fold 3 instead of a 2 for this reason. I like big uninterrupted displays but a camera is still useful for video calls, face unlock and the occasional selfie. I would accept a motorised pop-out camera but that takes up more space than a UDC, space which I would rather use for batteries. I would love to have UDCs on my laptops in exchange for slimmer bezels leading to smaller laptops for a given screen size or more screen for a device size.
Speak for yourself not for others, we all have different opinions.
Tams80 - Tuesday, September 7, 2021 - link
You want slimmer bezels on your laptops...Sorry, but that alone makes your opinion silly.
Tams80 - Tuesday, September 7, 2021 - link
I'm only interested if the camera is going to be placed in or near the middle of the display. That would be innovative and useful (if still poor image quality).But otherwise, yeah, just use a damn bezel.
shabby - Friday, September 3, 2021 - link
Surprised the udc area ppi is identical to the main screen, Samsung's implementation has 10 year old ppi in that section, how are they so far behind?Fulljack - Saturday, September 4, 2021 - link
Samsung uses foldable display which adds complexity.Samus - Sunday, September 5, 2021 - link
Samsung also used previous gen tech. Even the recently launched Z Fold 3 uses a 4MP front camera (the actual sensor is 4MP, not just capturing at 4MP like this one.)This phone appears a generation ahead on UDC technology.