Ahhh, the notch life.
When last year started, we only expected greater things when it comes to bezel-less displays. The
Galaxy S8 and
LG G6 were great signs of that progress and I’m so happy! Phone makers don’t just settle for minimal top and bottom bezels though. They want to get rid of all of them.
The issue we run into when we do that is that we have to move these from the front:
- Front-facing camera
- earpiece (sometimes acts like a second speaker)
- ambient light and proximity sensors
The latter two are easy to move to the top. You only need to deal with how far you are from the sensors so that’s all good. The main problem is with the front camera? Where on earth do you put it? Should it be at the bottom like the
Xiaomi Mi MIX 2S? Should it pop up from the top of the phone like the
Apex concept phone from Vivo?
Instead of those options, Essential (the company) and Apple decided to do…
The Notch.
At least the Essential phone’s notch was small enough for you to easily ignore it. Just look at the iPhone X’s notch! That’s really BIG. I know that Apple has a purpose for the notch. They needed more space to house the whole TrueDepth camera system. It’s not just the front camera. Despite how big its notch is, the TrueDepth camera system has a lot of additional tech that results to better face recognition. (Find out in my iPhone X review if that worked out for Apple or not.)
If implemented right, the notch is fine. Although we’re in 2018, the notch trend caught on. Just look at this!
The TRENDING Notch Life.
Those are just SOME of the phones coming out THIS YEAR (besides the iPhone X) that have a notch. Even the Vivo V9 and the
OPPO F7 has that notch! Do you know what the worst parts are? Most of these phones have a small chin at the bottom! Even more of them only have a notch to
follow the look of an iPhone X!
I get that phone makers really need to sell more phones since they don’t really profit much from it (just ask Apple and Samsung). I just don’t like it that you really need to ride Apple’s notch just to sell your phone! At the very least, make the reason for your phone having a notch justifiable. Don’t be like OnePlus
trying to justify the notch even though it looks like every other Android notch.
For once, I applaud Samsung for sticking with their Infinity Display design in the
Galaxy S9. Despite having a forehead and a chin, they made it as small as it can possibly be. (Yes yes, Samsung can afford doing risks like the S9 but at least they know who they are.)
Even the Huawei P20 Pro isn’t immune to the notch. Despite the triple camera setup, it still manages to place a notch in the thing. At least Huawei made a HUGE investment in their cameras AND their color palette. (Dang the Twilight-colored Huawei P20 Pro is SUPER beautiful!)
I just hope that we look back at this year and say,
“Good thing it’s notch a problem anymore.”
Get it?
What do you think of the increasing amount of smartphones with notches? Are you okay with it? Is it something that would REALLY REALLY bother you? Let me know in the comments below! This is the first in the set of
Techie Opinions articles where I talk about my thoughts on recent tech topics such as this. You can also suggest for topics in the comments below!
Follow Utterly Random Techie on social media!
Related
[…] yes, both phones have the infamous notch but at least you get to hide it in software. No pricing has been set yet. It will most likely be […]