Future Huawei phones could have under-display selfie cameras and no physical buttons

One of the most striking features of the recent Mate 30 and P40 premium device lines are their 'ultra-curved' displays that push frame technology to the (literal) edges of its ability to stay on a given phone. New patents filed by their maker Huawei suggests that it is not dropping this motif any time soon.

The screens chosen for these flagships are almost ostensibly there to showcase this OEM's facility with a flexible display. Its more recent claims, submitted to the Chinese national intellectual property office CNIPA in November 2019, show 2 potential phone designs in which this kind of engineering is applied to the creation of virtual buttons, accomodated by gaps in the frame.

They occupy the entire side of the phone in some of the patent's schematics, whereas they also extend further in some others, nearly meeting a triple rear camera module on one side. The phones as depicted in these images also appear to lack selfie cameras; however, this leaves scope for the possible next-gen trend of under-display front-facing sensors.

However, the monolithic effect created for the screen in question is disrupted somewhat by the frame's 'jigsaw' appearance. As this patent has only been granted in June 2020, it may be some time before such a phone might ever see the light of day in any case.