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  • imaheadcase - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link

    I won't mention the notch, because i don't care about it, or anyone else will after using a phone with one for awhile.
  • PaoDeTech - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link

    Yep. A fashion statement as useful as wipers on sunglasses.
  • zanon - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link

    You've got it backwards, it's the non-notch phones that are the fashion statements. Notches are for the practical, people who care about functionality first and foremost. Of course like most fashion statements non-notch is way overhyped and most people being practical don't care in real use.
  • JoeyJoJo123 - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link

    There's nothing remotely functional with having to rewrite your app to take into account of all the different notch sizes/locations from phone manufacturers on the market. Having an extra 20 pixels of notification space really doesn't matter that much.

    It's really is just a lot more rational and reasonable to just continue using square (non-notch) displays so that end-users don't have bad customer experiences with your phone due to notch problems. Even Google's own flagship pixel 3 phones had notch issues on official google apps at launch. Their own phone with their own in-house software didn't play nicely.

    Notches are a joke. People want a phone that works, nobody's crying about having an extra bit of screen around the front-facing camera.
  • name99 - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link

    I can't speak to the Android side. But until you have used an iPhone with FaceID, you cannot imagine how delightful it is. Even seeing it used by someone else doesn't really give the full impression.

    And the visuals of the notch --- fades out of your consciousness in less than a day.
    It's a tradeoff that's ABSOLUTELY worth it.
  • SleepyFE - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link

    Now that's just too much!! What does FaceID have to do with the notch? I am glad you are happy with giving apple your fingerprints and now your face as well, but that is neither here nor there. Much like your comment. I am also glad you trained yourself to ignore every flaw Apple puts into their products and redirect to ID stealing tech they use (for your convenience of course).

    If you still use your computer you might have camera integrated in the monitor. Now put your taskbar or tray on top and cover the central third of it with thickly folded paper so you can't see through it. ISN'T THAT GREAT?!? You are welcome. Enjoy.
  • PeachNCream - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link

    I came to this article just to read irate, irrational comments about something as unimportant as whether or not a phone has notch or not and was not disappointed.
  • JoeyJoJo123 - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link

    Except that:

    1) I wasn't irate. Defined as i·rate: feeling or characterized by great anger. First paragraph I explain that for app developers, it's not functional to have to write what is essentially a case statement for adjusting UI elements, such as a title bar, to accommodate varying notch sizes on phones. Then in the second paragraph I assert that even common end-users would be more familiarized and have a more consistent UX by using phones with square displays, even citing that Google's Pixel 3 line had improper support in Google apps due to their notch design choice. In the third paragraph I just conclude the feature as a joke.

    2) I wasn't irrational. I made a claim, and supported my claim. Literally just Google "Pixel 3 Notch", and the front page is filled with results on how to hide it, granting credence that Google's indexing engine is pushing up page results people are clicking on how to hide the notch; that people cared so little about a few extra pixels of screen real estate to the left and right of the camera that they'd rather use software to hide it.

    Leave it to PeachNCream to make the crappiest posts on AnandTech comment articles, yet again.
  • Quantumz0d - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link

    Google not only screwed with their own iPixel. But dumped the whole Android with the extra unwanted padding to the status bar icons, on the square phones, the icons are more towards the middle leaving space to the corners, for absolutely no reason on Oreo.

    https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/68351444

    Adding salt to the injury they retarded the number of icons as well to dots, making only 4 as usable, for the custom skins like Samsung GraceUI/Touchwiz whatever. They have options to show the notifications more on Pie.

    https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/112456377

    Since people are ready to drink any kool-aid like Apple apologists, we can never have good experience or control.

    Notch and the rounded fad aren't going to go anytime soon unfortunately, the uber tall meaning less displays are another stupid thing. The camera sensors take photographs in 16:9 or 4:3 ofc you can manually tweak to the phone but no sane DSLR will do that weird arse aspect ratio.

    It's a huge mess that Apple made, a shame that Samsung's latest phones are going to be 19:9, the only phone which has fairly good footprint and screen is LG V30, their design was on spot despite the tall ratio it's the widest of all the latest 18:9 phones and less taller. But LG dumped it, due to multitude of reasons - Mobile division didn't get profits reason is due to marketing PR team but engg team apparently paid for the price and lost their direction add the presidential changes at LG due to same, now look at the V40 ads "What it takes to switch to V40 - 5 cameras"

    So apparently cameras are new fad as well, S10 and whatever + version is having 4 cameras on back and 2 holes in the front,

    It's not Infinity O, It's HOLED.
  • PeachNCream - Thursday, December 13, 2018 - link

    You seem sensitive to being called out Joey, yet also neglect to notice that you attempted to do the same thing in another news article recently. Can you not take what you attempt to dish out?
  • JoeyJoJo123 - Thursday, December 13, 2018 - link

    Your attempts to anger me are admirable, but I cannot be angered. Go ahead and keep up your low effort trolling. I'll just call you out when you do so.
  • Inteli - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link

    Except notches are a side-effect of the growing trend of decreasing bezel sizes (which is primarily looks-focused), and a notched screen is less functional than a non-notched screen because it eats into addressable screen area. If you truly *only* cared about functionality, you wouldn't be looking at flagship smartphones.
  • GreenReaper - Thursday, December 13, 2018 - link

    A notched screen can be more functional since it *adds* screen area that wasn't there before, rather than taking it away. Indeed, this seems to be how most of them work.

    On my new Redmi Note 6 Pro there's a full HD screen area, *plus* the area taken up by the notch (which was largely wasted; I only have so many notification icons), *and* an area at the other end for software buttons - or potentially more information, depending on the app's support.

    Would it be ideal if the whole area was a screen? Probably, but how would the front camera and speaker work? Pop out? That sounds cool, but also potentially expensive and liable to break.

    Or maybe there wouldn't be a camera on that side, which'd be OK for some and save money, but sucks if you want to do any kind of video-conferencing (or yes, selfies) with it.

    Or else, you have the full screen size, but also a bigger bezel. That makes the phone larger and more awkward to hold, more expensive to ship in bulk, etc.

    As for flagships - it might be the top of the Redmi line, but it's only $199. The notch is at all price points, as it offers a solution to a problem - how to have more screen, but also a camera.
  • Mr Perfect - Thursday, December 13, 2018 - link

    A notch does use more of the phone's face for screen real estate, but don't forget how that new space is used. Those new teensy little corners are now where the notifications live, and there just isn't enough room there. Instead, many notifications get hidden in a notification overflow menu.

    Check out Arstechnica's Pixel 3 review to see pictures of this in action. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/10/pixel-3-xl...

    On page one, the very first set of pictures illustrates this. The phone without the notch has space across the status bar for twelve notifications and still has space left over. The notched phone has space for six notifications and the rest get hidden away. That is a very real loss of functionality.
  • EnzoFX - Thursday, December 13, 2018 - link

    One if the biggest reasons I moved from android to iOS was because I was sick of so many damn notifications. I do not want to live in the notification area. Less space for it is a god send in these days where everything thinks it deserves my attention. Yes I can disable apps, etc. Android specifically over announced even it's basic functions. Good riddance. The rest of the iPhone X, and now XS Max is just icing, and sorely needed coming from a minimalistic and multitasking/multitouch approach to interacting with our devices.
  • SleepyFE - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link

    Less space to show them doesn't mean there are less notifications. It just means you can't see the important ones, because the idiotic ones drown them out of the notification bar.
    This is like having your desk at work full of papers and to-dos and samples of whatever you do and decide to saw the desk in half to solve your "clutter".
  • SleepyFE - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link

    I find more bezel easier to hold. My phone does not have enough bezel to hold with one hand on a shaky bus ride, because i need to hold it strong enough not to drop it (with the other hand on a rail, so i don't drop when the driver breaks) and it registers touches on the edges. So having bezel is actually useful and there is no way to use the notch in most apps especially if the app is in landscape mode, making it a wasted space. As you can see i hate all the latest trends. Even the one where phones are getting bigger and bigger. But that one is a bit dated by now and is sadly still going strong. If i didn't use email on the phone i would get a nice old school one.
  • piroroadkill - Thursday, December 13, 2018 - link

    There aren't enough eye-rolls in the world to respond to this comment.
  • SleepyFE - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link

    That is partly true. The non-notch (i was gonna write normal, but that might not be understood) phones are a statement. They state:"I don't follow fashion, i know i'm fantastic...." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFlum-_TfMk
    I love that song. Enjoy.
  • GruntboyX - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link

    It worked for Mercedes and Volvo for headlights...
  • SleepyFE - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link

    Past tense. If only the notch would go away that fast.
  • Quantumz0d - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link

    An utter shame. Samsung, Shamesung. For the first time they deserve it.

    With all that Anti-notch advertising ingenious ads. This is total hypocrisy from them. And they even entertained the idea of dropping jack on A8s. Add the horrible camera module which is another Huawei/Honor style, iPhone rip off.

    Samsung showed off their notchless hole less display in Shenzhen some time around this year and even advertised it during that event but. Looks like their incompetence or lack of putting more money into the R&D due to reduced earnings (thank the reviewers who are forever biased to Pixel trash, and say the S9 is same. While the iPhone Excess max is very great).

    Never expected Samsung to stoop so low. Looks like there's no competition to Apple except to become a stooge for them and copy them, no Surprise since Google itself is copying everything from them down to control the OS ( Fuschia OS with MIT vs GNU GPL Linux) and Pixel Slate overprice without Jack/SD unlike Surface and charge a kidney just like Apple.

    A shame that today world only speaks about Investor money and profit maximizing over engineering and better longevity and liberty focused products.

    I'm happy at least LG is advanced in their Audio performance despite their lost direction by dumping the Balanced Design on V30 or more robust Secondary display on V10/20, with ESS chip but a shame that even Vivo has great phones with AKM DAC chips and 3.5mm jacks despite the dual display which is a billion times proper innovative idea (Nex S, Nex 2).
  • WPX00 - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link

    I think,

    I think,

    this is an S10 prototype, but they covered the front camera to hide its unique design, and this was the easiest way out.
  • s.yu - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link

    I honestly don't think it's gonna move past prototype stage, this bumps past Huawei's and LG's "notch with bezels of 3 different thicknesses" to become one of the two most ugly notch designs up there with Sharp(Foxconn)'s "notch with two 45° cut corners"
  • SleepyFE - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link

    LG had phones with notches like that years ago. They were however only used to constantly show date and time. I can live with that.
  • Inteli - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link

    I guess my LG V20 is years old at this point, and I suppose it is sort of a notch. The biggest differentiator between the V20 and new phones with notches is that apps don't try to address the secondary screen, they just stick to the normal 16:9 screen. If that's the way current notched phones worked I wouldn't mind them so much. Apple's guidelines prohibit blacking out the notch area, though, and where Apple goes the industry seems to follow.
  • SleepyFE - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link

    It's 2 years old and had it on other models too (LG X Screen). My "years ago" comment was in the realm of; Apple didn't come up with it, they just split the extra screen space and made it annoying by making it app addressable.

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