Vivo's Nex range of smartphones, including the Nex A and Nex S, are the first ones in the world to launch with an elevating or pop-up selfie camera. With a near-bezel-free display, without a display notch, the selfie camera is hidden and emerges only when required. But, as per a video spotted online, that's not always the case. The video suggests that the pop-up selfie camera on the Vivo Nex comes up while opening a chat window on Telegram, when no camera function is prompted. Other users also claim the camera pop ups while using Tencent's QQ browser and the Ctrip app.
A video posted on Chinese social networking website Weibo, first spotted by Abacus News, shows the unintended appearance of the pop-up camera on a Vivo Nex smartphone while using messaging app Telegram. The user, in the video, opens Telegram on the smartphone, goes to New Message, and clicks on a contact to open up a new chat. The camera appears as soon as the new chat is opened, but goes back into concealment once the app is exited.
The report suggests that users have also observed similar behaviour on Tencent's QQ browser as have some on travel booking app Ctrip. However, in both these instances, the pop-up camera seems to have appeared only partially. In a statement, Tencent stated that while the QQ browser does prompt the selfie camera, it does not record anything. This development has been blamed on Android's camera APIs with Tencent claiming that the API is triggered because of the QR code scanning nature of the mobile browser.
The report claims that while there is no public statement from Vivo, the Chinese phone maker has notified its technical team and will follow up soon.
While privacy might be one of the biggest concerns with this development, the "bug" could actually help keep a tab on what apps are using the selfie camera without reason, something that isn't practically possible on a smartphone that has the traditional front camera setup.
Are Vivo Nex and Oppo Find X revolutionary phones or overpriced prototypes? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.
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