No ports: All you need to know about Vivo Apex 2019 concept smartphone

From foldable smartphones to 5G handsets, 2019 has been teeming with innovation in the smartphone industry. And Vivo isn’t shying away from the limelight, recently showcasing their own unique concept of the ‘port-less’ phone.

Meizu may have announced the first port-less smartphone as nothing more than a publicity stunt, but Vivo seems all set to follow through on their idea. The company first revealed the Apex 2019 Concept smartphone earlier in January and already have a working model. Vivo displayed a port-less smartphone with no buttons at an event in Hong Kong.

The Vivo Concept phone has a unibody design. The phone uses magnetic connectors for charging, and data transfer as it has no ports and is made of a piece of glass.

The Apex 2019 concept smartphone also features a full-screen in-display fingerprint sensor, allowing you to unlock the phone by placing your fingers anywhere on the screen.

Vivo’s latest concept phone uses Touch Sense technology, which essentially combines pressure sensors, capacitive buttons and a linear motor as substitutes for volume and power buttons. The power button is indicated by a dotted area on the right of the phone, while virtual buttons on the screen show the location of embedded volume controls.

The Vivo Apex 2019 Concept smartphone also utilises Screen SoundCasting technology, which eliminates the need for speaker grills. The technology vibrates the phone’s display to produce sound, similar to LG’s Crystal Sound OLED technology.

Apart from the impressive new features on the Apex 2019 smartphone, it also boasts the latest hardware, including the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC, 12GB of RAM and 256GB of Storage. The phone also features support for 5G connectivity; however, whether or not it is commercially viable is still questionable.

While the Apex 2019 works great as a concept, commercial application may not be practical. Firstly, the Apex concept phone Vivo displayed didn’t feature a front-facing camera. Additionally, the refusal to adopt wireless charging can be frustrating. Lastly, covering the entire screen in individual sensors aren’t going to come cheap, which would undoubtedly make the phone cost-prohibitive in the short term.

All things considered, the Vivo Apex Concept smartphone looks beautiful and works pretty well. But the transition from ‘concept to commercialising’ isn’t going to be easy.