Early reviews of Apple’s first foldable, the iPhone Duo, say its under-display front camera – the first of its kind on an iPhone – takes poor photos. In its iPhone Duo review, Gizmodo describes the 4-megapixel inner camera’s photos as ‘low-res, washed out, and just not sharp at all’, and says video calls ‘still look muddy’ even if the camera is ‘serviceable in a pinch’.
The camera sits beneath the inner display and only shows up as a black hole punch when an app such as FaceTime uses it; the rest of the time it disappears beneath the pixels. Apple quotes 1080p video recording for it but has not highlighted its photo quality. Marques Brownlee called the camera ‘very first gen’ and the photo quality ‘trash’, MacRumors reports. Reviewers generally rate it better for video than for stills.
For selfies, the iPhone Duo has a separate 12-megapixel front camera on the outer display. With the phone unfolded, the outer screen can also act as a viewfinder, so the rear cameras can be used for selfies.
Samsung used an under-display camera on the inner screen of the Galaxy Z Fold 3 to Z Fold 6 before dropping it because of poor image quality, Gizmodo notes.