Vivo Unveils the APEX 2019 Concept Smartphone Without Buttons & Openings

Vivo has announced the long-awaited APEX 2019 concept smartphone in Beijing today. Vivo’s first 5G smartphone offers an ultra-simple design with Curved-Surface Waterdrop Glass and no openings, seams or bezels for a simpler user experience.
Packed with cutting-edge technologies and features, APEX 2019 showcases a brand-new minimalist concept that takes smartphone design to a whole new level.

“With the goal of enhanced usability and simplicity at the core, APEX 2019 offers consumers a glimpse into the future of smartphone design and development. The Super Unibody design and Full-Display Fingerprint Scanning technology, among several other breakthrough features, make APEX 2019 a truly exceptional smartphone that demonstrates Vivo’s continuous exploration and pursuit of exceptional innovation for consumers,” said Spark Ni, Senior Vice President of Vivo.

APEX 2019 introduces a sleek and truly FullView^TM design that’s almost completely bezel-less. The device successfully delivers an unconventional smartphone experience by completely removing physical buttons – instead, adapting Touch Sense technology, which brings together capacitive touch and pressure-sensing.
Thanks to the software, the pressure sensors can tell if a user is pressing the frame and the capacitive touch can determine the position, providing extra-sensitive accuracy.

USB ports are replaced by a MagPort, a magnetic power connector which enables both charging and data transfer. This allows for a more streamlined user experience while making the body more compact.

APEX 2019 also turns its display into a speaker by using Body SoundCasting technology, transforming the entire APEX 2019 display into a speaker via the screen vibration function, avoiding the need for a speaker grill.

Full-Display Fingerprint Scanning

APEX 2019 comes equipped with Full-Display Fingerprint Scanning technology, as it boasts a sensor that covers almost the entire display. This enables users to touch almost anywhere on the screen to unlock the device.

It is supported by Vivo’s cutting-edge Fingerprint Light function – when the user’s finger is close to the display, the pixels around the touch point will automatically light up as an additional light source to help obtain a clear fingerprint image.
A larger sensor also enables more features to bolster security for using apps. When users wake their device from an inactive screen and press on the corresponding app icon to scan their finger, they can unlock and gain direct access to the app so that the experience is more efficient.

5G Smartphone for Variety of User Scenarios

Vivo’s first 5G smartphone runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 platform with a 12GB of RAM and 256GB of onboard storage. It is also equipped with Jovi AI Assistant.
APEX 2019’s 5G mobile network capability enables an enhanced experience for video viewing, cloud gaming and a variety of other user scenarios.

APEX 2019 has also solved the challenge of limited motherboard space by using a Duplex PCB Design which has increased the available space by 20% to minimize the overall stacking space. This is Vivo’s solution to free up space for the 5G modules, making the phone a true unibody 5G phone.
However, since the phone is a concept, there’s little chance it will be available in large numbers.
Vivo is among the pioneers in 5G technology empowering technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality and virtual reality. In the future, the deep integration of 5G and AI will become key to the development of the 5G smartphone era.
Vivo will be attending the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona at the end of February and visitors to the event will have the opportunity to enjoy a first-hand viewing of APEX 2019.