It's hard to deny that 2018 has been the year of notches with every other OEM increasing smartphones' screen-to-body ratio with notched displays. But 2019 could bring new trends and by the looks of it, notches don't seem to be defining the trend next year. Samsung and Huawei have set precedent that mark end of the notch-era, but it still remains to be seen how other OEMs respond.
Samsung showed off new Infinity Displays at the recent developer conference and one of the ideas was to put a hole in the display for the camera. Samsung called it the Infinity-O, which would be integrated in the soon-to-be-launched Galaxy A8s smartphone. But Samsung's chief rival, Huawei isn't going to let the thunder slip away so it announced its first teaser of a hole-in-the-screen smartphone.
Huawei shared a poster on Weibo, which shows the silhouette of a smartphone with an in-screen camera and many believe the handset in question is the Nova 3S. The launch date on the poster is December 12, which could mean Huawei will be the first one to launch a smartphone with a hole in the display for the camera.
Naturally, the Nova 3S will be truly bezel-less without slider or pop-up cameras as the front camera will be placed in a hole on the display's top left corner. The accompanying text on the teaser roughly translates to "Selfie portrait full screen," which clearly highlights the full-screen and in-display camera features of the Nova 3S.
Other details about the Nova 3S are currently unknown, but we can expect to know more from its China-release next month. Huawei's new handset will succeed the Nova 3, which was launched in July.
The Nova 3S will be a premium smartphone, like the Nova 3, which came with Kirin 970 chipset, dual rear and front cameras and a 6.3-inch notched display. We are yet to find out how the Nova 3S will compete against the Galaxy A8s and if these two smartphones will successfully start a new trend of notch-less phones in 2019. Stay tuned for updates.
