During Tun Mahathir’s swearing-in ceremony as the 7th Prime Minister of Malaysia, you would probably notice a smartphone on the front pocket of His Majesty Yang di-Pertuan Agong. We are curious what smartphone does Tuanku use, and some of our readers have tried guessing as well.

Based on the responses, most people say it isn’t the iPhone and Tuanku is likely to use a Samsung flagship like the Galaxy S8 or S9 based on its curvature shape. We can’t really see the phone as Tuanku uses a folio type case as His Majesty’s choice of gadget protection.

Looking at the position of the earpiece, we believe this could be a 16:9 smartphone with thick bezels. Since the new flagships from Samsung have a thinner foreheads because of its larger Infinity display, the earpiece is now placed higher at the top. Below is a comparison of the earpiece placement on the Galaxy S9+, Note8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X:





Another factor to consider is the dimensions of the phone. Since it is impossible to get the exact width and height from a screen capture, we attempted to get the height to width ratio of the phone on photoshop. With a height and width of 224×115 pixels, the ratio is 1.95.

Below is the height x width ratio for the 4 flagship phones:

Galaxy S9 – 147.7mm x 68.7mm = 2.149

Galaxy S9+ – 158.1mm x 73.8mm = 2.142

Note8 – 162.5mm x 74.8mm = 2.172

iPhone 8 Plus – 158.4mm x 78.1mm = 2.028

iPhone X – 143.6mm x 70.9mm = 2.025

Based on the comparison above, we are inclined to believe that Tuanku could be using an iPhone 8 Plus. The earpiece is placed lower from the top edge and the height to width ratio of 2.028 is close to our estimated 1.95.

Some commenters were quick to point out that there are no flip cases for the iPhone. This is not true as there are a number of flip case options available for the iPhone.

We wish to emphasise that this is just a guess and we could get this completely wrong. The above ratio is just an estimate and the casing may have a thicker padding which makes the phone look bigger than it seems. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.