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They did it. With the Vivo Nex, the Chinese phonemaker actually took its crazy concept phone from February, the Vivo Apex, and turned it into a real phone you can pay money to buy.
The Vivo Nex has an all-screen design with no notch, no speaker grille, and a selfie camera that pops up from inside the phone to take your picture. Sporting a 6.59-inch Super AMOLED display with a full-HD+ resolution, the Nex also features an underscreen fingerprint scanner. It's powered by the third-gen version of the tech found in its earlier Vivo X21 phone and promises to be a lot faster than the original.
Putting the 8-megapixel pop-up camera inside the phone means it isn't taking up room on the screen. That design helps keep the display bezel-free, though there's still a small chin at the bottom.
There are also no speakers on the front. The Vivo Nex uses "screen soundcasting" technology to turn the screen into a speaker. This gives the handset a similar feel to the original Xiaomi Mi Mix, but Xiaomi dropped the tech for its Mi Mix 2 ($395 at Amazon.com), as turning the phone into a speaker tends to broadcast your conversations to everyone around you.
Time will tell if this will also be the case with the Vivo Nex.
The back of the phone gets more conventional. The Nex has dual 12-megapixel and 5-megapixel cameras on its rear, and features a dual-pixel sensor for better low-light shots. Like previous Vivo phones, it uses AI to help you identify scenes and take better shots by automatically adjusting the settings. There's also a voice assistant called Jovi to help users with tasks, though this will likely only be available in China.
Other features include dual-SIM support, 256GB of storage and a 4,000-mAh battery.
The Nex will launch in China, and availability hasn't yet been confirmed for other markets. It will likely roll out to countries in Asia where Vivo has a presence, such as Singapore and Hong Kong, in the near future.
If you're in the West and keen to try this phone, you'll have to wait. You may be able to get a Nex from online resellers soon, but be prepared to pay a slight premium. Stay tuned from pricing and hands-on photos and videos as soon as we can get them. Meanwhile, check out the Vivo Apex phone that the Nex is based on.
- Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 845
- Memory: 8GB RAM, 256GB onboard storage
- Display: 6.59-inch Super AMOLED full-HD+
- Features: Underscreen fingerprint scanner
- Camera: Front 8-megapixel pop-up, rear 12-megapixel and 5-megapixel cameras.