The Vivo NEX 5's design allegedly leaks out with a muted finish and a 2022-sized camera hump

Vivo is expected to resurrect its premium NEX series with the upcoming 5, a flagship Android smartphone currently believed to run on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC and to offer a powerful telephoto lens upgrade passed over in 2022 premium mobile devices thus far. The latter feature may or may not have been captured in a leaked image for the first time.

Then again, this supposed inaugural NEX 5 camera hump leak might have proven a little sketchy. It had reportedly posted by the typically reliable leaker Digital Chat Station, yet is now nowhere to be found under this name. Therefore, this one might comprise a rare miss for the popular Weibo account.

On the other hand, given the standard-issue 2022 nature of the device as shown in the photo, it may yet be plausible enough. The camera island in particular gives a strong impression of adhering to current top-end smartphone trends, consisting of 3 lenses dominated by an exceptionally large and, therefore, presumably primary shooter.

In fact, the phone as pictured could easily be mistaken for an X-series flagship, a successor for which is also predicted to launch from Vivo this year. On the other hand, there is no hint of Zeiss branding here, which is odd as this feature is probably destined for the same upper-mid-range phones.

Should the leaked image prove genuine, it is finished in what could be one of Vivo's new colorways for the NEX 5, most likely Earth Gray or Night Black. According to another eminent tipster, Bald Panda, these SKUs will be available alongside a less somber-sounding third option: Sunny Mountain Blue.

However, this one will only have 8GB RAM/256GB internal storage or 12GB/256GB configurations, with the top-end 12GB/512GB combination reserved for the NEX 5's darker variants.

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