Last year was all about having the best screen to body ratios. Many smartphones ended up having interesting ideas on minimizing the bezels of the smartphone. Out of all, the notch was easily the most influential and gained popularity. With almost every smartphone manufacture adapting some derivative of the notch Samsung with a few others remained neutral to all the trends.
Samsung in late 2018 revealed the Galaxy A8s with an Infinity-O display which caught the attention of many. The smartphone had no notch but instead featured a punch hole style front camera. This design immediately became the next big trend with Huawei already on the bandwagon. With 2019 off to a start we expect more and more manufacturers to adopt this trend in some manner to achieve that sweet above 90% screen to body ratio.
As the race for having the most seamless smartphone continues, Xiaomi showed the most substantial growth with its Mi Mix smartphones finding unique ways to counter the infamous notch. As per a report by Lets Go Digital, Xiaomi has filed a petition for a smartphone to house dual punch hole cameras. The patent reveals that Xiaomi could, in fact, be working on a punch hole device. The Mi Mix 3 offered a slider mechanism to avoid the notch and hid all the sensors in the slider but met with its fair share of problems.
Firstly, the slider meant that the phone would be prone to above average wear and tear and would provide zero water resistance. Secondly, having a movable part in a smartphone raised questions on the phone’s structural integrity. Having a punch hole design could fix all the above issues at a cost of some screen real estate and we could expect Xiaomi to implement this technology in the upcoming Mi9 or the Mi Mix 4.
