Samsung and Huawei kickstart ‘hole punch’ smartphone trend

The end of the controversial display notch is nigh… for Android at least.

Samsung kickstarted the death of the cutout with — no surprise — another type of display cutout on its newly announced Galaxy A8s. Instead of the typical notch, the A8s sports an “Infinity-O” display with a “punch hole” cutout for the selfie camera located in the upper left corner.

The A8s marks the first time Samsung’s released a phone with a new display without a symmetrical top and bottom bezel and beats Chinese rivals like Huawei from claiming first for yet another mobile innovation.

The Galaxy A8s is a midrange phone and, well, it’s not Samsung’s best. But that’s not to say it’s not capable, though. On the contrary, other than the slower Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 chip, the A8s’s got some respectable specs:

• 6.4-inch LCD display (2,340 x 1,080 resolution)

• 6GB or 8GB of RAM

• 128GB internal storage

• microSD card slot (up to 512GB)

• 3,400 mAh battery

• Triple cameras: 24-megapixel (f/1.7) main camera, 10-megapixel telephoto camera (f/2.4), 5-megapixel camera (f/2.2) for depth-sensing

• 24-megapixel selfie camera

• Fingerprint sensor on rear

Samsung pledged to invest in bringing new innovations to its midrange phones to better compete with Chinese phone makers such as Huawei and Xiaomi, and the A8s fulfills that promise.

The A8s appears to be quite the spec’d-out phone so long as you’re not looking for the best performance.

Unfortunately, the phone and its new display is only available in China. No pricing has been announced, but since it’s a step below the Galaxy S9 and Note 9, you can expect it to cost less.

Huawei’s also releasing hole-punch phones

But Samsung’s not the only one will a shotgun aimed right at the notch. Huawei’s, the second-largest smartphone maker and the biggest threat to Samsung’s mobile domination, is readying its own phones with “punch-hole” displays.

Its Nova 4 teased last month will be unveiled later this month on Dec. 17 with the same display with circular selfie camera cutout. Huawei’s Honor sub-brand has also semi-announced the View 20, a midrange successor to the View 10; the phone will come with its latest Kirin 980 chip, 48-megapixel rear camera, and hole-punch selfie camera display.

Three new phones with the hole-punch display officially makes the screen design a new trend. The most anticipated phone that’ll come with the hole-punch design is looking like Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S10, which is expected to be announced sometime in February or March of 2019.

Advanced 3D face unlocking unlikely

Punch-hole displays no doubt increase a phone’s screen-to-body ratio (a feature coveted by many tech geeks), but they’re likely missing any kind of sophisticated 3D depth-sensing system (comprised of an IR sensor, flood illuminator, etc.) that make face unlock on the iPhone X, XS, XS Max, XR and some Android phones like the Huawei Mate 20 Pro and Oppo Find X more secure.

With a single round hole just for the selfie camera, these new punch-hole phones will have to either rely on less secure 2D-based face unlocking, which are more easily bypassed using printed photos or pictures on a high-resolution display. 

The other alternative to 2D face unlocking is to forgo it in favor of a fingerprint sensor, which is what the Galaxy A8s appears to have. An in-display fingerprint sensor as rumored on the Galaxy S10 is another workaround.

Inching closer towards an all-display phone

Lots of phones with notches or narrow bezels are advertised as “all-display,” but that’s just marketing bunk.

Phones with notches are close but not quite all-screen. Hole-punch displays and motorized and slider camera mechanisms get us closer to the sci-fi devices of our dreams where you’re holding just a sheet of glass in your hand.

It’s been a very interesting year watching as phone makers use all kinds of techniques to achieve an all-display phone. 

We’re inching closer towards a phone with a 100 percent screen-to-body ratio. Will it be Samsung or Huawei or some other company that gets there first? Frankly, I don’t care who’s first — I just want it.