Chinese smartphone maker Vivo talked up “multiple innovative technologies and functionalities” it is working on, with the “most notable” being an advanced fingerprint scanner.

“We are set to increase our technology capabilities and bring better products to our consumers. That is how we keep our brand’s competitiveness in the long run,” said Alex Feng, SVP at the company.

Widely anticipated to be adopted by companies such as Apple and Samsung in their next-generation flagships, Vivo said it was the first smartphone manufacturer to demonstrate under display fingerprint scanner. Rather than using a dedicated scanner, fingerprints are detected from on-screen input.

By removing the need for a dedicated button, the company said it enables true full-screen displays, with integrated unibodies and waterproofing. It is based on ultrasonic technology, which Vivo said can be “further expanded to realise user interaction, such as gesture recognition, security verification and other fields”.

Vivo Under Display uses technology from Qualcomm.

Imaging enhancements
Vivo also introduced an “independent DSP Photography Solution”, which it said is intended to help users take pictures with high quality and accurate exposure, and adjust the brightness of the image to make it better correspond with what is seen by the human eye.

The vendor said that it theoretically allows smartphones to take multiple RAW pictures quickly when shooting under complicated lighting conditions. The DSP chip will then automatically process and compose a single RAW picture, which is then exported to JPG format.

In addition to offering higher processing speeds, the company said the technology can reduce shot noise for night scene photography and improve Vivo’s Face Beauty mode.

Audio update
And Vivo also talked up its Hi-Fi audio efforts. It is releasing a new solution with improved audio performance from a customised DAC (digital to analogue converter) decoding chip.

The company said the technology is focused on perfecting details via a customised DAC chip together with a customised headphone amplifier, which improves signal-to-noise ratio, dynamic range, distortion and output power.

“In subjective acoustic evaluations it has shown better resolution and thrust, rich details and strong spatial perception,” Vivo said.