Pop-up Vs Notch Vs Bezel-less: The latest trend in smartphone industry

We are still in Q2 of 2018 and the companies have launched smartphones with futuristic design and flagship grade specifications. The most important aspect of these smartphones is the display. Almost every smartphone maker is struggling to offer more screen real-estate on their devices. And now, we have three major categories of smartphones with different kinds of displays. Notch, Pop-up, and Bezel-less. Let us look at these technologies to talk about the pros and cons of these implementations.

Pop-up

The latest buzz in the smartphone industry is the pop-up camera technology. Though this technology is a completely a new thing, smartphone OEMs are adopting this technology to offer higher screen to body ratio, a smartphone without a notch and without compromising on any functionality.

This started with the Vivo NEX, which offered a pop-up selfie camera and the Oppo Find X took it to the next level with a pop-up main camera and a front-facing camera. These phones have a genius level of engineering, which makes them look premium over the other smartphone by offering higher screen to body ratio. But, what if my phone takes a hit and the mechanism stops working? Do these mechanisms affect the battery life of the smartphone? What if an accidentally break the pop-up module and is it repairable and so on.

Coming to the Oppo Find X's case, by looking at the pop-up unit, it is almost impossible to use a case. Considering that the smartphone is made using glass, the smartphone becomes highly susceptible to the damages. It looks like the future of smartphone, but it does come with its own set of compromises.

Notch

A smartphone with an iPhone X like notch is the most commonly seen phrase on the smartphone industry today. Yes, the Essential PH-1 was the first smartphone to launch with a notch (display with a cutout on the top).

I personally not a notch person. When Apple launched the iPhone X I was happy and I was grieving. Notch is probably an interim solution before the complete bezel-less smartphone and most of the smartphone makers are following the trend.

Why do I hate the notch? For beginners, the notch makes a smartphone looks ugly and especially while gaming or watching content online I cannot see some portion of the content. Though this could be solved by developers by updating their apps, it will take some time and by that time, developers will have a new challenge to encounter.

Bezel-less

There is no smartphone with a complete bezel-less design as of now. The Xiaomi Mi MIX is one of the first smartphones to reduce the top bezel, but it had a bezel on the bottom part of the smartphone, which also houses a front-facing camera. A user has to rotate his phone to take a proper selfie, which is again a con on a top bezel-less smartphone.

Here there are two types of smartphone, top bezel-less and bottom bezel-less. Smartphones like the Xiaomi Mi MIX 2s does not have bezels on the top, whereas the iPhone X does not have a bezel on the bottom.

Conclusion

I feel making a bezel-less smartphone is like finding a solution to an unknown question. Being in the tech industry I have used several smartphones over the course of years and I can say that I still like good old smartphones with top and bottom bezels and here is why.

having top and bottom bezels on a smartphone helps you while gaming or watching multimedia. Most of the time, while gaming you will be holding your smartphone horizontally and some part of the display will be covered by your fingers and this might also lead to unnecessary touch inputs. Whereas, the smartphone with a bit of notch (say the Galaxy S9+, or the HTC U12+) eliminates this unnecessary inputs offering a more enjoyable gaming experience.

Finally, I would love to see more and more smartphones with top and bottom bezels rather than a complete bezel-less or notch or pop-up displays. As breaking those phones will also break my wallet.