Skip to main content

Here’s Vivo’s port-less Apex 2019 concept phone

Here’s Vivo’s port-less Apex 2019 concept phone

/

No ports, no problems?

Share this story

vivo apex
Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge

At an event in Hong Kong today, Vivo showed off its new Apex 2019 concept phone, which features no ports at all, 5G connectivity, and a fingerprint sensor that covers almost the entire screen. The device was originally meant to be shown off at Mobile World Congress this year, but its public debut ended up getting delayed. (That is at least somewhat better than Meizu’s own effort at a port-less phone, which turned out to be a publicity stunt.)

The Apex 2019’s body is shaped out of a single piece of glass, something that Vivo stresses was extremely difficult to achieve. It uses a combination of capacitive and pressure sensors to simulate the volume and sleep buttons, there’s a proprietary magnetic connector for charging and data transfer, and the screen itself vibrates in place of a speaker. And then there’s that fingerprint scanner, which can be used with multiple fingers placed almost anywhere on the front of the phone.

I can say that in my brief testing so far, all of these features have worked pretty well, and the phone’s unibody design is indeed beautiful. While it wouldn’t make for a compelling consumer device just yet, Vivo gets around this with the “concept” designation. The Apex 2019 will never go on sale.

Stay tuned for more on the Apex 2019 and why Vivo designed it this way.