Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 initial review, price and specs on Revu Philippines

Xiaomi phone with pop-up 7-camera module seen in patent

In Phones by Ramon LopezLeave a Comment

Xiaomi is expected to announce its flagship Mi 10 series in early 2020, but a recent patent filing by the Chinese technology brand paints a much more exciting future for its smartphone lineup, if adopted.

SEE ALSO: Xiaomi Mi 10, Mi 10 Pro: Benchmark, specs leaked so far and Look! This is OPPO, Xiaomi, Vivo’s file-transfer tech in action

Patents filed by Xiaomi with the Chinese National Intellectual Property Administration or CNIPA suggests its future smartphones could feature multiple cameras in a single pop-up module.

The two images below, lifted directly from the patents, show three different designs for the pop-up module housing a phone’s cameras. One of them shows a device with two front-facing cameras and five rear-facing ones in the same module, for a total of seven cameras.

Designs of Xiaomi-patented phone with 7 cameras via Revu Philippines

What do you think of this design? You can see the rest of the images here

That’s five more than what the Vivo V17 has in its elevating selfie mechanism, which sports an ultra-wide-angle lens for group shots. Crazy, we know, but the patents don’t reveal the specs of each one, so a few of them could be depth sensors that are not capable of taking pictures on their own.

Moreover, a hepta-camera camera system seems far off in the future for Xiaomi, or any smartphone maker for that matter, considering how close the cameras need to be in order to share the same pop-up mechanism.

READ ALSO: Xiaomi applies to trademark ‘POCO F2.’ New Pocophone coming? and Xiaomi products launching in the Philippines seen in this Jan-Feb 2020 brochure

Having said that, we should probably take these patents with a grain of salt. Not to mention, patents don’t always result in actual products. It’s highly likely these patents will be used to test ideas or create prototypes, as opposed to making something for the commercial market. Nonetheless, it’s always interesting to lift the veil and get a glimpse at potential devices a company like Xiaomi is working on.

Share this Post


Learn About This Author

Ramon Lopez

Facebook Twitter

Reviews editor: Ramon "Monch" Lopez has 15 years of professional experience creating and editing content for print and digital publications such as Yahoo. He headed the gadgets-merchandising division of one of the Philippines’ largest retail operators somewhere in between. His latest addiction is the comments section of viral Facebook posts.