Weekly poll: are screen holes better than teardrop notches?

The tide of smartphone design may be shifting – the screen notch flooded the market, but a slightly less obtrusive option is on the horizon. Screens with holes cut out for the selfie camera sacrifice fewer pixels than the classics notch and could be nearly invisible with a black status bar.

It looks like Samsung will lead the charge with Infinity-O screens on the Galaxy S10, but also with mid-range offerings like the Galaxy A8s as seen in these concept renders. There are some other ideas, like Huawei cutting a slot for the earpiece (the company also has designs selfie cameras as well).

But is a hole better than a teardrop notch? Those don’t take up much space and they tend to be in the center, unlike the rumored Samsung designs, which put the selfie camera in the corner.

Practically, you lose the same amount of screen. Aesthetically, a circular hole doesn’t break up the looks of the phone as much.

There are other solutions, of course, the previous poll showed a strong interest in manual sliders. But there are concerns about the durability of those and the added complexity in the build may keep this design in the premium segment. Same goes for the motorized pop-ups.

Finally, there are always those who say “bezels aren’t bad”. And they have a point, at this point makers are shrinking bezels by fractions of a percent and bragging about it, even if it offers little benefit to the end user.

Where should the selfie camera go?

In a hole On the top bezel

In a teardrop notch On any size notch