Forget the 5x periscope optical zoom. Forget the triple lens and the ToF sensor. The coolest smartphone camera game in town is now gimbal stabilization, one of the centerpiece features of the stunning Vivo Apex 2020. As you can see in the video below, this smartphone is amazingly cool.

As you can see in the video above, the technology packed into the Apex 2020 is impressive.

Never mind the zero-port, zero-button body. Capacitive touch with tactile feedback is used on the edges to control volume and power on/off.

Or the gorgeous, extremely curved display, which Vivo calls a 120-degree full-view edgeless display.

You can even ignore the camera under the display to avoid punch holes, notches, pop-up cameras, and sliding selfie cameras. We have already seen that.

Yes, the 60W wireless charging made me say "what the heck" and the AI magic of instant photo bomb removal made me scratch my head.

And while I have yet to see a continuous optical zoom that can slide smoothly from 5x to 7.5x with a motor-driven moving lens, the real star here is elsewhere in that circular camera package.

The gimbal stabilization is the winner. Imagine being able to keep your camera level at all times without having to attach something awkward to your phone.

This not only mechanically stabilizes the lens against shake and vibration. The gimbal allows you to move the phone however you want, meaning the sensor will keep looking straight without losing height from the ground.

Obviously, this is not a perfect replacement for a true external gimbal with multiple degrees of freedom. However, carrying an external gimbal all the time is a hassle, and arguably, rolling compensation is always beneficial for most people. Not only for taking straight video, but also for taking 100% level photos (say goodbye to rotational cropping of images).

Clearly, the gimbal is one of the most useful and practical features of any smartphone I've seen since the introduction of multiple sensors and AI. Optical zoom is OK, but not as useful.

Vivo has surprised us every year with limited edition Apex phones, but the phones are never widely distributed. The Chinese company is using Apex to introduce a technology that it believes will be the next big thing in smartphones.

So what are the chances that gimbals and other cool features of the Apex 2020 will be available on mainstream smartphones? I would say quite high. First, Vivo usually adopts these innovations for its Nex line. However, other manufacturers have adopted some of the features in their phones, as happened with the pop-up camera.

Last year we saw the Vivo Apex 2019, an impressive single slab of metal and glass. We know that other companies are working on phones without openings or ports - Apple is reportedly working on it to avoid future adoption of the EU's mandatory USB-C port law.

The year before, Vivo went viral with the Apex 2018, a concept phone that showed a true full-screen screen with no notch at all thanks to a pop-up selfie camera module. That experimental model led to the commercial Vivo Nex S. Recently, the company returned to the spotlight with its follow-up, the dual-screen Vivo Nex 2.

However, the Vivo Apex 2020 is the company's most impressive effort to date. The gimbal functionality alone is probably enough to start a new camera feature war in the coming months, with a smartphone like Samsung's Galaxy S20 likely to get the attention it deserves.