Galaxy A82 5G might bring back the flipping slide-out camera

It almost feels like a distant dream or nightmare, depending on where you stand, but it wasn't really too long ago when smartphone makers played around with designs with a singular purpose in mind, banishing the inescapable top bezel. While most have now embraced the punch-hole cutout, there was a time when phones sported eccentric mechanisms like popup cameras and sliding displays. Samsung wasn't exactly immune to that trend and it might be making bringing back the past with the Galaxy A82 5G.

Launch in the first half of 2019, the Galaxy A80 made headlines by making a small part of its back slide up. That movement would then flip what is primarily the rear cameras to become high-quality front-facing cameras. The design removed the need for a front-facing camera completely as well as the need for a notch or cutout.

That phone didn't really become the huge success Samsung might have hoped it would be and its novelty wore off quickly. It seems, however, that Samsung is willing to give it another go, especially now that its Galaxy A series has become even more popular thanks to its affordable 5G proposition.

With Samsung launching most of the successors to those Galaxy A phones, GalaxyClub's sources suggest that the Galaxy A82 will be coming soon, too, probably after the rumored Galaxy A52 and A72. That said, it actually isn't certain yet if the Galaxy A82 5G will even have that sliding mechanism. The only thing that the site is certain of is that it will have 5G support and that's it.

On the one hand, it will definitely be surprising if Samsung gives this odd design another go, given how it has more or less settled on punch-holes for its smartphones. Then again, it definitely has the resources to play around with designs and a quirky diversion might not hurt it one bit even if it fails.