Gadgetory

hey what's up guys I'm Kim PhD here and there's been a lot of talk about notches lately as it turns out as I'm working on my review of the galaxy s 9 one of those small changes to the S 9 is those bezels notches and bezels are all kind of the same thing so let's talk about bezels so smartphones have evolved a lot obviously over the years you may not think designs have a whole lot of drastic change I mean there's still kind of the same shape generally but one thing has been consistently true and that is you may have noticed that screens are now pushing closer and closer to those edges now obviously devices with screens have Bessel's around those screens some bezels are bigger than others and there's this whole wide spectrum of different bezels on different devices and different form factors thick and thin rounded or sharp we clearly used to not care about bezels and phones like have you seen designs from 2005-2008 anytime before this modern movement seems like there used to be more bezel than screen but now we hate them 2018 and recent smartphone design has been all about how can we get rid of bezels how can we shrink those bezels maximize our screen to body ratio can we get rid of bezels matter of fact that is the question can we get rid of bezels and if so how in theory the answer is just get rid of everything that's still housed in those bezels and then you can minimize the bezels and we have the tech today to test that theory so side bezels first of all definitely easy there there's nothing that has to be in them so pretty much anyone with a budget has pushed the screen all the way to the size of the rails samsung even has what we call the infinity display where they literally curve the glass over the sides so those are no problem but in the top some bottom bezels of phones there are some things that you'd have to get rid of any fingerprint sensor on the front got to get rid of that the earpiece got to hide that the front-facing camera and any proximity sensor or ambient light sensor and any microphones if we really want to end bezels and phones if we really want to shrink the bezel to zero then we have to find a place to put all of those things so all right if we start with the microphones and the light sensors those are actually pretty small you can the microphones on the top of the bottom of the phone and the light sensors the proximity sensor does have to be on the front so you can put it up to your face and make a call and turn the screen off but the envier light sensor again is so small it can go almost anywhere so then there's the earpiece to make phone calls where do you put that so we've seen various uses of this sometimes you kind of double the earpiece as a front facing speaker so you still want it to be pretty big but when you don't you tend to be able to shrink it down or shove it way up at the top of the phone or you can do what we saw in the Xiaomi me mix which is a piezoelectric speaker now this is not a super new technology but we never really needed it in smartphones before since we always had room in the bezels but a piezoelectric speaker actually vibrates the glass and frame of the phone so that it sounds just like an earpiece speaker when you put your ear up to it it's surprisingly good so that lets you take the earpiece on the front put it under the glass shrink the bezel a little more and then there's a fingerprint sensor this is a fun one since most phones have shrunk their bezels so much already that you don't have room for them at the bottom in that spot anymore so they've moved to the sides and more commonly the back now that's fine but a lot of times you still want to use it when it's flat on a desk you want to be able to unlock your phone so you have the option of an in glass fingerprint reader so one of my latest videos goes over a synaptic sensor that puts an optical fingerprint reader underneath the display glass for OLED displays so you can shrink the bezel all the way to zero and still have a front-facing fingerprint reader for unlocking your phone definitely worth checking that whole video out for roughly where that technology stands and how close we are to getting it in phones but so far so good so then the last thing is that front facing camera the selfie camera can't get rid of it but if you want to shrink the bezels to zero you got to put that somewhere else as of right now we don't have the technology to put a front facing camera underneath the display glass although that would be really cool so if you want to hide that you kind of got to get creative this is the part where I wish I could hold up the vivo apex concept phone and show you exactly how that works but I obviously don't have one so I'm gonna use some footage from other people who have seen it so this is what it looks like when you successfully made every trade-off I just talked about in getting rid of everything that's normally housed in bezels and putting them somewhere else the light and proximity sensors are still in the tiny bottom bezel of the phone and at the top so they still work the earpiece is the piezoelectric speaker so it's vibrating the glass you can hear when you put your ear up to it the fingerprint reader is a massive optical sensor in the middle of the display that's underneath about a third of the glass and the front-facing camera is actually on a motor that pops up in this little housing from the top of the phone when you turn it on that is the length they went to to give us this bezel this phone or this concept every single one of these things was removed from the bezel they used a flexible OLED display and curved all the drivers and edges underneath and that leaves you with this this beautiful six-inch bezel the screen but here's the thing it's a concept phone and not to burst anyone's bubble but it's a concept phone for a reason this thing probably cost them a couple thousand dollars to make and was also extremely difficult for them to make and having motorized moving parts like that and a smartphone is generally not good for durability and also waterproofing so there's a lot of little things they don't really think about when it's a concept phone and it looks so great but it just looks so great so that brings us to the question of what can today's phone makers do in a reasonable budget with today's technology to get closer to bezel lists well today you can move the light sensors around you can move the fingerprint sensor to the back or even get rid of the fingerprint sensor entirely you can shrink the earpiece or even get rid of it if we're feeling daring but pretty much everyone at this point realizes the front-facing camera is like that last step it's very important to a lot of people so we aren't quite as ready to take as many risks with it so that's how we got this this whole knotch situation where we really want to push the boundaries and go closer to bezel lists and we shrink the top bezel on the side on the bottom but we didn't really know where else to put the front-facing camera so we just gave you this in fact if you look back the essential phone got it all kicked off they had the camera and the front-facing ambient light sensor and proximity sensor and then that little slit at the top is the earpiece and then of course we got all those front-facing sensors in iphone 10 and sure enough now there's rumors of LG g7 neo doing the same thing Asus zenfone 5 Z the rumored one plus six and probably many more to come but if you're wondering how I feel about the notch this notch isn't the future it isn't even a feature it's just it represent this awkward middle stage between cellphone designs of the past and the bezel list that we want when we figure out what to do with that front-facing camera these notches are just kind of the best ideas designers are trying to come up with now for finding clever ways to keep a front-facing camera but also shrink as much of the bezels as possible at this point you can only really go like the Samsung way or the Apple way they've kind of coined their camps the Samsung way is we don't want a notch we're just gonna shrink and keep the bezels and just pack them as tight as possible on the top and bottom of the phone but keep all the sensors where they normally go it's better looking for sure at this point but it's more more stable that way the iPhone way the Apple way is more of its aggressive its uglier but it's more pushing towards that bezel this future that we want when we finally figure out what to do with those front-facing sensors it's just a shame people have to copy it's kind of like when Apple just decided they wanted wireless audio to be the future and stopped putting a headphone jack in the phone it's weird and it's awkward at first but it definitely moves us forward to that more seamless future so it starts has a big ugly notch now with our current technology but ideally next year shrinks a lot shrinks again and eventually when we get the technology to hide that camera and get rid of those sensors on the front completely it's gone as far as today's phones go I gave the essential phone my design and build award because it did the knotch as best as we seem to be able to with today's technology like I said it shove that earpiece way up at the top and it has both the proximity sensor and the ambient light sensor and the front-facing camera all up in that tiny little notch in the center so I think the next essential phone hopefully there is one can keep basically the same design just like shrink the chin even more and try to keep that top notch as tiny as possible bigger screen maybe tiny side bezels I'd be pretty pumped about that so okay basically to summarize everything on our march towards that coveted hundred-percent screen to body ratio towards these bezels phones we came up against this obstacle of the technology we have right now that is we can't hide all those sensors and that's what created this knotch and if we're gonna move past it if we're gonna get past it it's just like this little phase in the history of smartphones we have to be optimistic about the technology that saw in phones like that apex phone so I'm crossing my fingers for that I'm hoping it's sooner than later obviously and I'm just pumped that there are people that are creative enough to push the boundaries in ways differently than just following the way that Apple and the central we're pushing the boundary to begin with hopefully it's just a face until then Bravo vivo we'll see that hopefully soon thanks for watching talk to you the next one peace