the CEO one of the chinese phone companies (i can't remember which one) just came straight out and told theverge what we all assumed: the notch isn't necessary, but consumers see a notch as "premium". So they notch the display, because that tests better in their market research.
I heard Alan Kay sum it up well in a podcast this morning where he was talking about how evolution doesn't have to evolve to be the best anything. Paraphrasing- "If you live in a stupid environment, stupid is the most fit."
A notch is necessary for the faceid sensor array. If you don’t need a foreword facing sensor array you should get rid of the notch.
If you have a finnger print sensor on the rear why not make a no-notch phone with an edge to edge display and no notch?
Do you think Apple came to the same conclusion? That a notch was a necessity to appear premium? No they didn’t because they were not copying anyone else’s phone design, they included a notch so faceid worked.
It appears you've misunderstood the comment you're replying to. The notch is considered premium because Apple did it and imitator are only doing it because Apple did, not because they need to for the same reasons that Apple did.
Yes! It's a mad world where a design compromise suddenly becomes something to be emulated all by itself.
"It's not a bug, it's a feature".
I hate the look of the notch, but at least the rest of the iPhone looks super slick. The Pixel Notch instead just made an unattractive design far far worse. Bravo!
Someone else pointed out the screen doesn't even go all the way to the bottom, making the notch look entirely superfluous. At least the iPhone actually uses all the space on the front, even if the notch looks absurd.
Yes, but the Pixel screen doesn't go to the edges. There's a sizeable bezel at the bottom. Could have left one at the top as well, and avoided the notch.
Why though? Why get rid of screen space that could be used for something?
If you really hate that space being used, there are several apps out there that "disable" it by pushing the whole screen to treat that space as if it were bezel.
Doesn't that give everyone the best of both worlds? I prefer the notch in that it gives me more space at the top around it for things like notifications or status icons, and if you hate the look you can black it out and have it look like it's just a big bezel.
Apple made it premium, but phones had notches before them. Sharp and Essential phone come to mind.
Sharp in particular has had fully bezel-less phones for years, I honestly though their camera on the bottom design would be copied way before the weird notch.
I fondly remember the "2nd screen" of the LG V10 and V20. When I first saw the notch I figured it would be an awesome implementation of LG's 2nd (and 3rd) screen.
I was wrong thought. It's the full screen and part of it is cut out as you can see when watching videos and playing games.
I'm currently still using the V20 and like it, but do think that as the notch gets smaller, you lose the available space for functionality like the LG's second screen.
Of course ideally, the notch gets smaller, not like the Pixel.
> A notch is necessary for the faceid sensor array. If you don’t need a foreword facing sensor array you should get rid of the notch.
Pretty much every smartphone for years has had a forward facing, top-mounted sensor array (and a similarly positioned output device), either in a bezel or, if avoiding a full-width bezel, a notch.
(The “sensor array” may just be a camera and light-level sensor, but it's there, for sure.)
Well, there are some devices that try to inrease the screensize to the max, for example the Oneplus 6 (which has sadly a very high SAR value) or the newly "leaks" of de Mate 20.
