Top Mobile Phone Trends to Watch in 2019
It might seem like only yesterday that the groundbreaking iPhone X was receiving plaudits and brickbats in equal measures, of which the latter centred on the infamous notch that adorned the facade of Apples near bezel-less masterpiece. A year and a half later, weve gone from indignation to acceptance and then to a rather rapid embrace of its charm (i.e. unabashed copying). Welcome to the fickle world of smartphone design. What does 2019 have in store for us?
Hole-punch Displays
The hole-punch or punch-hole display, depending on whom you ask, is the most distinctive or discreet feature you can expect to see on upcoming smartphones with an edge-to-edge display. For the longest time, smartphone makers werent able to extend the screen all the way to the top edge because a space was needed for the selfie camera. With the iPhone X, Apple made the module, which also takes care of face recognition, a design feature: The notch was born, and despite naysayers, the design was widely copied.
But an elegant solution appeared with the launch of the Huawei Honor View 20, the first to feature an inconspicuous hole-punch cut-out in the display. It seems the idea is being rapidly adopted with the Samsung Galaxy S10e and S10 sporting the hole-punch display and Nokia and Motorola expected to follow suit soon.
The new Samsung Galaxy S10+ boasts dual front cameras and as such, has a bigger cutaway. While it is only as large as it should be, some users may find the island camera disaffecting. For these users, the S10+s settings menu offers them the option to hide it by adding a black bar across the top of the display.
For the longest time, smartphone makers werent able to extend the screen all the way to the top edge because a space was needed for the selfie camera module.
In-Display Fingerprint Sensors
Smartphone manufacturers go to great lengths to maximise the viewable display area and minimise bezels on their devices. But security features have also taken centre stage, with passwords being replaced by fingerprint sensors, which have had to be located on the front bezel, on the home button, or on the back of the phone. While Apple bet on face recognition, others have
developed what might turn out to be the ultimate fingerprint security solution: an in-display sensor.
The Samsung S10 is perhaps the prime example of how you can achieve maximum display area with minimum compromise. In addition to a hole-punch display, Samsungs new flagship also features an ultrasonic fingerprint reader, a more secure solution than a regular optical fingerprint reader, that allows it to read 3D contours of your thumbprint. The Huawei Mate 20 Pro and the One Plus 6T also feature an in-display fingerprint sensor.
As facial recognition and iris recognition that rely on visual-based recognition hardware are not always trouble-free, it will be interesting to see how well in-display fingerprint sensors perform. Moving forward, in-display fingerprint readers are likely to become a standard feature for most high-end smartphones.
Others have developed what might turn out to be the ultimate fingerprint security solution: an in-display sensor.
Multiple Cameras
Cameras are a critical feature that may make or break the success of a smartphone, especially the flagship models. Thus, it is not surprising for manufacturers to design smartphones around their cameras.
Year after year, manufacturers have been cramming multiple cameras into mobile phones and dual cameras are becoming the norm. The Huawei Mate 20 Pro released at the end of 2018 pushed the envelope with four cameras that enable you to take natural wide-angle, macro, telephoto and portrait photos without significant software manipulation.
Although each camera lens on a phone usually has a dedicated function, the newly launched Nokia 9 PureView is an entirely different proposition. It features five camera lenses (two f/1.8, 12MP RGB sensors and three f/1.8, 12MP monochrome sensors) arranged in an unorthodox hexagonal pattern. Unlike the Huawei Mate 20 that counts on different cameras to do different jobs, each camera on the PureView captures an image with different settings and the phone combines all the images to maximise image quality. Nokias track record of producing some of the best camera phones in the past stand it in good stead but it remains to be seen if this concept will catch on.
The highlight for 2019 will undoubtedly be the periscope camera. Thanks to this groundbreaking technology, smartphone cameras can now go beyond the 2x optical zoom commonly offered even on flagship phones like iPhone XS and Samsung Galaxy S10. Oppo and Huawei will be first to release phones that incorporate recordbreaking zoom power in April and March respectively this year. Oppo, which first showcased its 5x optical zoom system in 2017, announced a 10x hybrid zoom system at the 2019 Mobile World Congress and has confirmed a maximum focal length of 160mm on its upcoming model, Reno. The latest Huawei P30 Pro includes a periscopestyle lens with superzoom capabilities. While its specifications unavailable at press time, the phone is rumoured to feature a 10x optical zoom, which extends inside the phone rather than inand out.
Expect the one-upmanship to continue unabated as their rivals cant afford to fall behind. But dont expect camera designs that are too radical, because they often result in the phones becoming too unwieldy.
Year after year, manufacturers have been cramming multiple cameras into mobile phones and dual cameras are becoming the norm.
Foldable Phones
Tech trends are often cyclical, but this one comes with a twist. Foldable displays are arguably the most exciting feature on the smartphone scene this year. The concept of a foldable phone initially manifested in the clamshell design of the 2004-released, widely popular Motorola Razr V3 and lost its shine when iPhones debuted in 2007. Now, this trend is back with a bang in the form of foldable displays. It may surprise you that Samsung already developed and prototyped this technology as early as 2011 its 4.5 inch flexible AMOLED display with 800 x 480-pixel resolution paved the way for the curved screens on its Galaxy Edge phones that gave them an edge. The application of this technology has proved challenging but a handful of phone manufacturers have put out phones with foldable displays in the past few months. Chinese brand Royole is the first in the race with the FlexPai annouced in October 2018. The device with a 7.8-inch display that cannot be fully flat either when folded or opened offered a primitive sample of what this new generation of phones could look like. Then Xiaomi created a buzz by releasing a video of its President using a prototype foldable phone on 23 January this year. The highly anticipated device announced as Xiaomi Mi 9 a month later impressed with the way it folds outwards into three parts and a very competitive starting price. The Samsung Galaxy Fold that will be available in April and the Huawei Mate X available from mid-2019 present two contrasting ways of experiencing the foldable screen. The Galaxy Fold has two displays a conventional smartphone display measuring 4.6 inches across and a large 7.3-inch QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED display when you open up the phone. Cameras adorn both the inside and outside of the phone so you can access all camera modes regardless of whether the screen is folded or unfolded. The Mate X, on the other hand, has a single 8-inch display that folds down to form
two smaller displays on the front and back of the phone. It is the most elegant solution at the moment and is genuinely forward thinking. While some brands are adoting a wait-and see approach, it is rumoured that Motorola may revive its iconic Razr as a flip phone with a foldable screen this year.
The thrill of novelty aside, it is too early to say what it is like to live with them, not to mention the exorbitant prices. The prospect of a tablet-sized disply sans the bulk certainly has its charm, but questions remain. Will the hinges last? Will the display crease? What happens if the phone lands screenfirst? Foldable phones may gain more traction if there are satisfactory answers to these questions. ag
The thrill of novelty aside, it is too early to say what it is like to live with them, not to mention the exorbitant prices.