Samsung patents weird rotating pop-up camera system for selfie lovers
Recognition: David Imel / Android Authority
- A patent suggests that Samsung is working on a novel rotating pop-up camera system for a future smartphone.
- The design allows the rear camera array to rotate and lift to meet the user while taking selfies.
- It is unclear if this design will be used on an upcoming consumer smartphone.
Samsung has invested in some pretty crazy camera designs in the past. The Galaxy A80 and its flip camera come to mind. Now the company is apparently researching another design that could be on a future Galaxy model.
Speckled by LetsGoDigital, a patent published by the World Intellectual Property Office in January 2021, provides for a Samsung phone with a rotating pop-up rear camera array. The design describes a phone with a triple rear camera without a dedicated selfie camera. However, when the user wants to take a selfie, the rear camera array is shifted up and rotated 180 degrees to face the user.
This allows the camera positioned highest on the array to act as a selfie shooter. The design would make the primary camera act as a selfie camera and improve the image quality. This feature was arguably a highlight of the Galaxy A80. The documentation suggests that this system could be optimized so that two rear view cameras would be licensed to act as front gunner. In theory, this would allow Samsung to use a wide-angle shooter at the front too.
See also: The Best Camera Phones You Can Buy Right Now
The apparatus is driven by a motor and operated by a plurality of gears and a propeller shaft. It looks incredibly complicated, and the multitude of moving parts will likely present a durability problem for users. Dropping such a phone could spell disaster for the mechanism.
Even so, it’s a ready-to-use way to build an all-screen phone without sacrificing the quality of the selfie camera. In our experience, under-display cameras are still not as polished as they need to be. Patents also suggest Samsung is working on a solution to this problem as well.
While Samsung is reportedly building a successor to the Galaxy A80 – namely the Galaxy A82 – there’s no indication that the phone will feature a similarly peculiar camera design. However, the Galaxy A80 was kind of a niche device for Samsung, so the company may still show up [heh – ed] with a surprise.
