Vivo APEX 2020 Concept Packs Astounding Zoom And Wireless Charging You Won't Believe

It's that time of year again, as Vivo has revealed its APEX concept smartphone for 2020. As this is a concept, you won't be able to buy the APEX 2020 and use it as your daily driver, but it could be our clue into some of the technologies Vivo will implement in its consumer smartphones throughout the year. If nothing else, Vivo's APEX concepts show us what kind of flagship we might get if cost wasn't an issue.

The APEX 2020 has been outfitted with a 6.45-inch display that has a pretty extreme curve around the sides of the phone. Vivo says that the display curves 120-degress around the edges, and the images show us that the sides of the phone are almost entirely covered in the display. That, of course, means that there's no room for physical buttons, which have been replaced by "a virtual pressure-sensing button."

In a blog post today, Vivo spends a significant amount of times talking about the camera tech on the APEX 2020. Not only is the front camera normally hidden behind the display, the back camera is equipped with continuous optical zoom. The APEX 2020 can apparently produce 5x-7.5x continuous optical zoom by tapping into a "4-group lens combination," where two groups of lenses are fixed in place and the other two are movable. Despite that, Vivo says that the entire lens module is only 6.2mm thick.

The rear camera also makes use of a "gimbal-like structure" to bolster optical image stabilization. "Lab tests demonstate that compared to the tradition OIS system, its stabilization angle is 200% extended," Vivo wrote today, noting that the phone's stabilization chops allow it to extend exposure time without any extra hardware, in turn making low-light photos turn out better.

The APEX 2020 is a completely closed phone that doesn't have any ports, which means that it relies on wireless charging. Vivo has implemented its own Wireless Super FlashCharge 60W in this phone, which it says can charge a 2,000mAh battery in 20 minutes. We don't know how big the battery in the APEX 2020 is (we assume it's larger than 2,000mAh), but regardless, Vivo's point is that it can be charged up quickly even without a USB-C port.

So, there you have it: Vivo's APEX 2020 concept. Judging from what Vivo shared today, it's an impressive phone, but since we're lacking a full specification sheet, we don't have a complete picture of its capabilities. Still, it'll be interesting to see if things like that display or that optical zoom module make their way to other Vivo phones this year, so stay tuned for more.