Best and worst smartphone trends of 2018

The Notch race

There is no doubt the trend of all trends this year was the notch. That infamous screen cutout, which may have been around before the iPhone X, but Apple was the one to make it popular. And then it spread like wildfire in mere weeks and before we knew it, most of the smartphones had a notch.

The consumers' uproar was probably as loud as the companies' PR campaigns, which tried to convince us to buy those phones with Full View, Full Vision, Super Retina HD, Full Screens or whatever else names they came up with. The push for the notch could hardly be justified by the more modern looks it gave the device but as the practical merits were few. But regardless of the impetus and whether we like it or not, the industry has moved in that direction for good.

The first Android smartphone manufacturers bragged about having smaller notches than Apple while conveniently overlooking the fact none of their notches housed anything remotely similar to Apple's Face ID scanning tech. But the mere fact that those companies incessantly compared their products to Apple's confirmed that they continued to be the trendsetter in the industry in many ways.

In the second part of the year the new waterdrop-shaped notches took over. Oppo and vivo had different implementations of how a dewdrop should look like, but they were both on the right path - the one that will eventually shrink this cutout into oblivion. Now pretty much all manufacturers have at least one model with a dewdrop notch and we can't say we object - if there isn't going to be any advanced face-scanning tech inside this spot, why not make it as small as possible?

Taking this concept further, at the end of the year we saw the first punch-hole camera designs appear. We're not even sure if this qualifies to be called a notch any longer. We still haven't decided on whether we find it nicer and more practical than a dewdrop notch, but we guess it will be up to the consumer to make that call.

Huawei Mate 20's dewdrop notch next to Honor View 20's punch hole camera

Samsung and Sony were among the few makers to avoid the notch race in 2018. But it's hard to say whether that's due to an unusual reluctance to follow Apple or merely they are slower to adapt their product planning than smaller companies. Rumors have it that Samsung will be soon launching new OLEDs with different types of notches so 2019 may take the front facing camera to new and surprising places.

Meanwhile, we can only hope nobody takes notes from the Sharp Aquos R2 Compact and its two notches, or as the internet quickly branded those - the notch and the crotch.

Insanely fast quick charging

The fast charging options have been around for a few years now but it was only in 2018 that we saw them evolve substantially. Sometimes it's hard to tell who is who in the world of smart charging standards but Qualcomm's Quick Charge has traditionally been the most widely used. Oppo and Huawei, however, have been leading the innovation race for some time now and both companies reached new heights this year.

At the beginning of this year Huawei had probably the fastest available charging standard - Super Charge at 22.5W, followed by Oppo's VOOC and OnePlus Dash at 20W.

Both Huawei and Oppo, however, reached new heights in 2018. Huawei launched the Mate 20 Pro with a new 40W version of its Super Charge. Then Oppo pushed the Find X Lamborghini Edition and R17 Pro with a 50W Super VOOC charging.

Not to be outdone, OnePlus upped their charging game by offering their 30W Warp Charge, currently available only on the OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition.

We've already tested those proprietary charging standards and while Oppo and Huawei are still leading, OnePlus and vivo are catching up.

Wireless charging speeds have improved, too. The Pixel 3 and 3 XL, as well as the LG V40, can all do 10W wireless charging. The recent Razer 2 even supports 15W wireless charging. Unfortunately, for now, most of the high wattage chargers are either proprietary or hard to get or quite expensive or all of the above at the same time.