Notch: Once Essential Design Element, Now Slowly Disappearing
With the advent of frameless phones, manufacturers had to deal with the placement of the front camera and other sensors. Thus, the so-called notch was made. The notch is a display cutout used in smartphone displays to allow for having the largest possible display area without bezels. An alternative to notch is the so-called hole punch that we can see on the new Samsung Galaxy S21, for example, and many other phones today.
What Is the Notch? - CONTENTS
Notch and Its History
This solution first appeared in the Essential Phone, where a camera was placed in a cutout in the display. However, the concept was popularized mainly by the iPhone X, which placed not only the camera, but also the sensors necessary for Face ID (a security feature by Apple) into the notch. After its success, the cut-out caught on and was popularly used by many Chinese phones.
Gradually, however, the screen cut-outs shrank into minimalist, drop-shaped cut-outs. But even those are experiencing their own descend from glory, and the front cameras are finding their place in the aforementioned hole punch cutouts.
In the near future, the next steps of the manufacturers will probably be to place the camera under the phone's display, so that the uniform screen area will not be disturbed by anything at all. The first smartphone to introduce such practice was a foldable Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 5G, but so far, it is the only smartphone to do this and it remains to be seen whether Samsung will begin to use this design feature in its other mobile phones.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Notches
The cut-out in the display is slowly experiencing its decline in popularity, but in its time it was also used as a design feature. But as it is the case with every technology, notch had, and sometimes still has its advantages and disadvantages. The most important questions to ask before purchasing such a device are as follows.
- Do you mind stretched displays? Notch is mainly used on phones with an aspect ratio of 18:9 or higher so that apps designed for the 16:9 aspect ratio don't have to be cropped to fit.
- Do you get a lot of notifications? The status bar is shorter on phones with a notch cutout, so it can't fit as many icons.
Notch was once an essential feature of bezel-less phones. Now it's gradually being replaced by a new design feature called the hole punch. Yet the notch has become a crucial evolutionary phase in smartphone design.
Smartphones