Samsung embraces Apple’s notch design but with its own unique take

Samsung is one of the rare smartphone companies in the world to have resisted the idea of using a notch or cutout display on its devices. At its developer conference in San Francisco, Samsung hinted at a big change in its approach to the design of Infinity Displays. The company showcased as many as four new screen designs, out of which three featured a notch.

Samsung has also introduced a new naming scheme for such Infinity Displays with cutout. Samsung Infinity-U, as the name implies, has a U-shaped notch on top of the display. This design looks similar to the Essential Phone. The second display 'Infinity-V' features a V-shaped notch. Infinity-O has the notch placed on the left corner of the display which seems unconventional.

The fourth one which Samsung simply calls "New Infinity", there's no notch at all. Samsung's upcoming flagship smartphone, Galaxy S10 is rumoured to feature an all-screen design.

A concept render of the Galaxy S10 shows a tiny hole on top of the display further eliminating even the notch. Details on the Galaxy S10 design are still scarce but it may be the first Samsung smartphone with a notch or an all-screen display.

Even though a number of Android players have blatantly copied Apple in using notch, Samsung has been doing pretty well without the notch on its Infinity Display. Galaxy S9 Plus features an edge-to-edge Infinity Display with 84% screen-to-body ratio and an aspect ratio of 18.5:9. Modern Android phones with notch displays, however, have shifted to a slightly higher 19:9 aspect ratio which more or less looks like the new standard for future phones.

The catch with notch on Android phones is that they don't bring anything new to the table apart from looking like an iPhone X or iPhone XS screen. Apple uses advanced sensors including TrueDepth to bring 3D facial recognition with better privacy and security features.

Android phones also have facial recognition but they're not as reliable and secure as Apple's. It will be interesting to see how Samsung implements the notch - will it be just a copy of iPhone X or actually feature sensors and other possible new features?