Samsung’s 5G Smartphone Prototype: Don’t Mention The Notch
by Ian Cutress on December 12, 2018 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Mobile
- 5G
- Snapdragon 855
- Qualcomm Summit 2018
In the Verizon 5G demo area at Qualcomm's recent Snapdragon tech summit, there was a station that was streaming 4K video through a 5G smartphone. That device was a Samsung prototype, and it was kept very hush-hush. They were serious: a completely dark screen and a thick case so none of the discernable details could ‘leak’.
The demo itself was fairly non-descript: a test case in pure bandwidth streaming. Everyone was more interested in the device. All that the Samsung representative would do is slightly drag down the notification bar, so users could verify it was connected to ‘5G UWB’ for the streaming rather than 4G.
Of course, with fancy angles and photography equipment, a bit more was able to be seen. One of the initial aspects was the fact that there was no regular notch: that much was easily visible from the naked eye and the demo being done. However on closer inspection, the right hand side icons in the notification bar were shifted. This is because there seems to be a notch on the corner.
In this photo on Slashgear, it shows the corner notch in all its glory. There’s a front facing camera there, what looks like a speaker/light sensor, and the corner of that notch looks like a hard right angle.
The device on display certainly looked like it has more of an edge to it. We suspect that the hardware in this unit was the Snapdragon 855 and the X50 modem, given the fact that it was a Qualcomm event, and the size of the demo unit was very similar to current Samsung flagships. No mention of any specifications however, as you might imagine. No word on if Samsung will do a similar non-X50 version, however Mobile World Congress is at the end of February when Samsung usually announces its next generation smartphone. We’ll be there, so stay tuned for our coverage.
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SleepyFE - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link
Past tense. If only the notch would go away that fast.Quantumz0d - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link
An utter shame. Samsung, Shamesung. For the first time they deserve it.With all that Anti-notch advertising ingenious ads. This is total hypocrisy from them. And they even entertained the idea of dropping jack on A8s. Add the horrible camera module which is another Huawei/Honor style, iPhone rip off.
Samsung showed off their notchless hole less display in Shenzhen some time around this year and even advertised it during that event but. Looks like their incompetence or lack of putting more money into the R&D due to reduced earnings (thank the reviewers who are forever biased to Pixel trash, and say the S9 is same. While the iPhone Excess max is very great).
Never expected Samsung to stoop so low. Looks like there's no competition to Apple except to become a stooge for them and copy them, no Surprise since Google itself is copying everything from them down to control the OS ( Fuschia OS with MIT vs GNU GPL Linux) and Pixel Slate overprice without Jack/SD unlike Surface and charge a kidney just like Apple.
A shame that today world only speaks about Investor money and profit maximizing over engineering and better longevity and liberty focused products.
I'm happy at least LG is advanced in their Audio performance despite their lost direction by dumping the Balanced Design on V30 or more robust Secondary display on V10/20, with ESS chip but a shame that even Vivo has great phones with AKM DAC chips and 3.5mm jacks despite the dual display which is a billion times proper innovative idea (Nex S, Nex 2).
WPX00 - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link
I think,I think,
this is an S10 prototype, but they covered the front camera to hide its unique design, and this was the easiest way out.
s.yu - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link
I honestly don't think it's gonna move past prototype stage, this bumps past Huawei's and LG's "notch with bezels of 3 different thicknesses" to become one of the two most ugly notch designs up there with Sharp(Foxconn)'s "notch with two 45° cut corners"SleepyFE - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link
LG had phones with notches like that years ago. They were however only used to constantly show date and time. I can live with that.Inteli - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link
I guess my LG V20 is years old at this point, and I suppose it is sort of a notch. The biggest differentiator between the V20 and new phones with notches is that apps don't try to address the secondary screen, they just stick to the normal 16:9 screen. If that's the way current notched phones worked I wouldn't mind them so much. Apple's guidelines prohibit blacking out the notch area, though, and where Apple goes the industry seems to follow.SleepyFE - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link
It's 2 years old and had it on other models too (LG X Screen). My "years ago" comment was in the realm of; Apple didn't come up with it, they just split the extra screen space and made it annoying by making it app addressable.