Slashdot Mirror


Samsung Will Put Notches On Its Future Phones (theverge.com)

Samsung is one of the biggest smartphone makers to hold off on releasing smartphones with display notches. But at the company's developer conference today, Samsung confirmed that it's soon going to join in on the trend. "A slide during the keynote showed several notch designs that are almost certainly coming to Samsung-branded devices in 2019 and beyond," reports The Verge. From the report: Hassan Anjum, a director of product marketing at Samsung, took the stage to highlight Samsung's previous breakthroughs in reducing bezels and maximizing display size year after year. "We're going to keep going. The bezels are going to shrink even further," Anjum said. "We're going to push the limits with our new lineup: the Infinity U, V, and O displays. These are new concepts that are just around the corner, and I can't wait to tell you more about them."

Infinity U: This basically looks identical to the Essential Phone's notch design. It's a small half oval that cuts down into the top middle of the display.
Infinity V: Similar to Infinity U, but with four edges instead of a curved half-oval.
Infinity O: This is a full circular cutout of the display and not so much a "notch" the top edge of the screen. Still, it seems like an eyesore and it's hard to imagine reaction to this being very positive. What's gained by that little area of display above it? Asus seems to be exploring a similar idea for its ZenFone 6, and feedback has been overwhelmingly bad.
New Infinity: This looks to be a completely notchless display. Anjum didn't discuss this one onstage, and the technology isn't quite there to allow for this design just yet. That said, Samsung could be exploring the idea of a slider phone that would house the selfie camera and other components somewhere outside their usual location.

10 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. I want Bezels by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have a nearly bezeless phone and it's a major pain. I'm constantly clicking things with the palm of my hand, especially youtube video links.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:I want Bezels by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Don't most people put protectors on their phone? That's the de-facto bezel. Get a bigger protector if you need a wider "bezel".

      Wait .. let me get this straight .. idiot designers make a phone with no bezel and a notch .. in order to protect their expensive phone users are going to put it in a case which blocks part of the screen ... and you're going to call that a wider bezel?

      I swear, smart phones make people fucking retarded idiots.

      Whatever ... I say we just start randomly punching people in the head who are taking selfies ... capture that on your Snapchat motherfucker, and don't stop in the middle of a goddamned fucking doorway like an idiot.

      Selfie taking idiots and the walking zombies who can't be arsed to look where they are going no longer get any consideration from me. I'm not getting out of your way because you are too stupid and ignorant to look where you are going ... if you end up on your ass, that's not my fucking problem.

    2. Re:I want Bezels by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Don't most people put protectors on their phone? That's the de-facto bezel. Get a bigger protector if you need a wider "bezel".

      So the answer is to retard the "bezel-less" feature the vendor is forcing upon consumers in order for the damn thing to work practically? How about we just not buy the fucking thing and send the vendor a clear message regarding their stupid design instead?

      Nevermind. I almost forgot we're here discussing how many flavors of notches are coming out. Common sense has long departed the masses who salivate over this crap, and don't mind spending another $50 in order to add a "bezel".

  2. This is stupid ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So because we want to eliminate the bezel (why, I have to hold the damned thing), and because we want it thinner (again, why, I'm only going to put it into an Otterbox case anyway), we're going to move the camera behind the screen (you know, the useful bits) and carve a little notch out of the display.

    Tell you what, give me a bezel so my fat hands can hold it, make it thicker so I don't need to worry about breaking it and so it has better battery life, take that stupid notch out, and stop sacrificing screen space so you can make it a fraction of a mm thinner.

    We get way too much fucking press coverage about phone notches, when phone notches are just a terrible design compromise so that all of the stupid design choices can be made to seem to suck less.

    What next, monitors with notches for built in web cams??

    Why?? Why are we cutting fucking notches in the display??? This is stupid, and just a sign of bad design.

    I just don't get this, we don't notch doors or anything else, but somehow the shitheads who make phones seem to think the notch is the biggest innovation in design ever?

    Sorry, the notch is a sign of incompetence, and sacrificing the wrong thing to put emphasis on other wrong things.

    Catchpa: ruined ... better fucking believe it

  3. Re:Why? by Stormwatch · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Apple is trendy, therefore whatever retarded shit they do must be good and worth copying.

  4. Re:Why? by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    [they do it because] Apple is trendy, therefore whatever retarded shit they do must be good and worth copying.

    While I hate silly patents, this is one case where I wish a patent got in the way of wider adoption. Same goes for pop-up ads and cross-site cooky tracking.

  5. Are we there now? by AndyKron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There was a time when cup holders in cars was the best innovation car makers could come up with. I think cell phones are there now.

  6. Re:Cup Holders Are Way Better! by LordKronos · · Score: 1, Insightful

    cutting into the screen

    Cutting into the screen? So what part of the screen are they cutting into? It seems to me that for a decade now, every single phone*** has had a bunch of dead space being wasted to the left and right of the camera and speaker. We've now expanded the screen to fill the space. It's quite a stretch to call that "cutting into the screen".

    Lets say you build an addition onto your house. If the addition doesn't span the entire width of your house, should we now say that the addition has cut into the living space of your house?

    ***ok, every single phone except the ones with pop up cameras....talk about a stupid design.

  7. Why must they constantly annoy us? by WaffleMonster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not really sure why smartphone vendors feel they need to take it upon themselves to dream up innovative new ways to poke, annoy and piss off their customers while at the same time raising prices to ridiculous new heights and failing in spectacular manner to deliver compelling new value.

    Not really surprising nobody's upgrading anymore given industry behavior.

    I'll upgrade tomorrow if any vendor can deliver the following.

    1. Removable battery
    2. Physical keyboard (e.g. BB KEY2)
    3. Not ridiculously thin
    4. Not ridiculously large
    5. No infinity edge
    6. No notches
    7. No headphone "courage"
    8. No AMOLED (IPS please)
    9. No (front) cameras
    10. No biometric unlock
    11. No locked bootloaders
    12. SD Card
    13. Configurable RGB indicator light for notification
    14. IR transmitter
    15. Real GPS
    16. SDR AM/FM ... LF-UHF preferred

  8. Re:Cup Holders Are Way Better! by jezwel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    On my phone that 'dead space' has LED indicators on one side that tell me if I need to bother looking at / turning on my screen to follow up on something. To me that's much more valuable than a little bit of extra notched real estate when I am using the phone.