Mobielkopen

Samsung has applied for a patent on a smartphone design that features a display notch.

The design also hints that the device would include an in-display fingerprint scanner.

The South Korean manufacturer has previously made fun of Apple’s iPhone X notch.

Samsung has submitted a patent application for a smartphone design that includes a display “notch.” The patent application was picked up by Mobielkopen [translated] after being submitted to the Chinese patent office SIPO by Samsung on March 30, 2018.

The design reveals a “bezel-less” device with a dual-camera setup on the rear, USB Type-C port, and volume and power buttons where you would expect. It looks like a regular, modern smartphone, though it’s lack of a physical fingerprint scanner suggests one would be housed in the display.

It’s also the first hint that Samsung is potentially pursuing a device with a cutout at the top of the screen.

The feature is currently a controversial topic in the Android community after it was popularized on the iPhone X last year. Many Android OEMs have since incorporated this type of design into their devices, though developers and manufacturers alike have devised ways to disguise it.

Samsung’s potential adoption of the notch, as the world’s biggest smartphone OEM, would be another nail in the coffin of the “un-notched” display — something that may devastate many Android fans.

Editor's Pick Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus international giveaway! Welcome to the Sunday Giveaway, the place where we giveaway a new Android phone each and every Sunday. A big congratulations to last week’s winners of the Samsung Galaxy S9 international giveaway: Lindsay A. (U.S.) This week we are giving …

Patent submissions are not, however, a confirmation of what we’ll see in upcoming devices: tech companies produce many patents, often as a competitive tactic rather than because it represents something they actually want to build. Mobielkopen also dug-up a similar Samsung patent for a device that is believed to feature a 99% screen-to-body ratio, which could be years away from commercialization if it’s even produced at all.

Mobielkopien

It’s nonetheless an interesting development — particularly due to the timescales. Samsung had boasted about the lack of a notch on the Galaxy S9 at MWC 2018 only in February (it also poked fun at it in an advert last year). Maybe Samsung isn’t as opposed to the notch as it wants everybody to believe.

For the “traditionalists” among you who are cut up about what this news proposes, look on the bright side: at least the headphone port is still there.

Well, in one of the designs, anyway…