Samsung shows off an under-display camera – no notch needed

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Display notches are undoubtedly the biggest smartphone trend in 2018. While they technically appeared before this year, we’ve seen an enormous number of devices with the “feature” in this calendar year. The notch is a stop-gap solution before manufacturers can figure out how to completely remove all bezels and sensors. Samsung Display is one company working on a solution.

The notch allows smartphone makers to take the display all the way to the top of the phone while leaving a space for cameras and sensors. Some devices do this more elegantly than others. To remove all bezels completely, there needs to be somewhere for the cameras to hide. Some manufacturers have used a sliding mechanism for this, but what if the camera could be under the display? That’s the solution Samsung Display is shooting for.

Great news! Samsung established the direction of mobile phone design in 2019!

On October 18th, Samsung Display invited about 20 customers to hold the “2018 Samsung OLED Forum” at the Shenzhen Marriott Hotel in China. At the meeting, Samsung showed a PPT pic.twitter.com/sYu0ORTd6V — Ice universe (@UniverseIce) October 19, 2018

Samsung Display held an “AMOLED Forum” event with about 20 attendees in China. They talked about a number of under-display features, including in-display fingerprint scanners, screen sound technology, touch-sensitive areas, and under-screen cameras. The basic idea, assuming this is really a camera under the display, is the display would be able to become transparent when you use the front camera, but in other situations, it would display content normally.

This is obviously the future of smartphones. Devices that are almost 100% display on the front with no sensors or bezel present. A slider mechanism can achieve this, but moving parts are always problematic in the long-term. Samsung is one of few manufacturers who has avoided the notch. It’s possible they will skip the notch completely and wait for this technology to be ready.