Vivo's been teasing the concept of a pop-up selfie camera since last MWC, but outside the Nex S, which landed in China last year, the technology has been sadly lacking in consumer devices. Today that changes, but only a little: Vivo has just formally announced the V15 Pro, bringing the pop-up camera to another consumer phone, but this time in India.

The V15 Pro isn't a surprise, Vivo's been teasing it since earlier this month, but this is the formal reveal.

Specs for the new device look great, though not terribly exciting by flagship standards. It's powered by a Snapdragon 675 — the first phone I've heard of to get the new SoC —with 6GB of RAM, a sizable 128 GB of storage, 3,700mAh battery, "Dual-Engine" Fast Charging, Android 9 Pie, and a 1080p-equivalent 6.4" AMOLED display. A triple rear-camera configuration provides a 12MP rear primary (48MP -> 12MP via pixel binning) with an 8MP wide-angle and 5MP "depth" camera. It also has an in-display fingerprint sensor, and Vivo went with MicroUSB rather than USB Type-C for some strange reason.

The pop-up selfie cam is a 32MP shooter, and Vivo advertises it as being tested to 300,000+ actuations and taking only 0.46s to slide into position. As with Vivo's previous phones, that means the front of the device can be otherwise unadorned. Save a bit of a bottom "chin," it's effectively all-screen, sporting just over a 91% screen-to-body ratio, according to Vivo.

I'm unable to load the "pre-book" shop listing for the V15 Pro myself, but according to Engadget, it's set to cost Rs 28,990 when it goes on sale in India, which works out to around $400 USD.

Hopefully, other markets like the US can start to see phone designs like this. It remains to be seen how well they work in application, but I know I'm curious to take a look and see for myself. If it's between this and a sliding design, from what I've heard, a pop-up sounds like it might be the better choice.

Source: Vivo