Punch-hole cameras are worse than notches. Went back to my Note 8.

This is going to be gripey so prepare yourselves.

Punch-hole cameras are fucking stupid. My Note 8 which has a beautiful large screen, still is plenty fast, and has most of the features I need in a phone has a seamless uninterrupted screen on it. That being said, I didn't NEED to upgrade to the S10+ but I saw the phone on a shit ton of reviews on YouTube and i loved the increase in RAM, faster processor, the minimum 128GB of memory, the on-screen finger-print reader was a huge plus and so I ordered it...

Fast forward 2 weeks after ownership and I hate the phone. So why do I hate the punch-hole? Well, the thing is that there is literal screen around the hole... which to my eyes look like there is something on the screen that is missing or should be there but isn't... almost like a stain. There are visible pixels around the camera which just seem to me to be entirely unnecessary and only meant to create some sort of ineffective illusion that the hole isn't as bothersome as it should be. The notch however completely makes sense to me because there is literally nothing at the top of every single phone other than the time, battery, and notifications more or less. So why should there be a reason to put a hole in the screen surrounded by screen that just pushes the time and battery into the center of the notification bar and thus decreasing the amount of varied notifications in that area? It makes absolutely no sense... it only makes sense within the confides of the idea that this is just a iterative refresh of an already great phone to the next thing everyone wants which is all screen and nothing up front just like the OnePlus 7 Pro has just done. Without a doubt Samsung's S11 next year will have a all-screen front either with a pop-up camera or a camera behind the screen which we've seen in a recent Samsung conference slideshow showing the steps needed until we get to all-display fronts.


Personally I never fucking take pictures of myself or have a use for a front-facing camera. When I had a iPhone 4 I tried the front camera to try FaceTime out of fun and curiosity and that was the last time. Just the other day I saw a review of a recent gaming laptop that had no front-facing camera... which to me is a option that every phone should have. Yes it costs more to have an additional option in a lineup, but for the amount of money that premium phones are going for it really should be possible to have the option. Yes I could go buy the OnePlus 7 Pro, but I really prefer Samsung phones now since switching from iPhones earlier this year especially because I have a Samsung watch and I am integrated with a lot of Samsung apps at this point. So with all that being said I would have been perfectly happy with a S10 that was setup like the Note 8 or 9 even in this case where the screen is uninterrupted and there is a very thin line of stuff in the top section which brings me to another point... I missed the IRIS Scanner on the Note 8. My phone is mostly unlocked anyway using Smart Lock because of my watch, but the IRIS Scanner was super convenient just looking at the phone to pay for things or whatever... it just seems like the logical thing to me instead of making pop-up mechanism into phones for selfie cameras especially since OnePlus can't seem to make the phone water-proof which basically every phone is now. Already I am hearing reviewers online talking about dust getting under the rear camera of the OnePlus 7 Pro for how the speaker and camera are positioned, and I just really wish there was a option to not have a selfie camera honestly. I saw a phone recently that has a smaller screen on the back, so you could literally activate the "rear" camera, flip the phone around, and the smaller screen on the back would come on so you can take selfies with the rear camera... which I think more people would like too since you can use flash then as well.

Anyway, that's the end of that... not sure how others feel about this shit... frankly I am very simple with my needs for a phone and I don't use it for much, but I feel like we are getting to a point where none of the new phones are interesting anymore and innovation is lax... foldable phones are coming but are too pricey at the moment but I just can't think of a scenario where I would be using a foldable phone during my day. My use for that would be standard phone slab during the day, and open the phone up at night to consume content.

I hope Google doesn't copycat Samsung S10 design for the Pixel 4, that would be pretty weak. I want to see something truly original, and utilize for the first time the full power of the HTC design team they bought, not make a S10 wannabe. Not that I hate on the S10, it's ok I guess, but Google should be creating something fresh here.

I realize this isn't relevant to your rant, but as a hardcore iOS user, I'm thankful to the front facing field generator and 3d cam for Face ID, which wouldn't be possible with different tiers of phones eliminating front facing cameras. Granted YMMV in terms of efficacy and preference (some people prefer some sort of fingerprint scanner). But I just moved to a XR from a 6S+ and it's changed the way I use the phone. It's so fast to unlock I don't really think about it. Just pickup the phone.

But to your point, I get it. I was kind of thinking the same thing about the punch hole. It's also not properly aligned in the corner. I'd almost want it "attached to the corner" or cut out like the essential phone rather than a weird punch on one side. Still though, it wouldn't be enough to put me off a phone either. Samsung is known for wanting to push tech and push interesting ideas. Perhaps this one is just a swing and a miss.

I'm perfectly fine with a notch, but at the same time I was ok with the size and non-edge to edge screens from before too.

My 6S+ screen is still pretty rocking and the massive top and bottom bars never bothered me. When I inevitably get a notch on my phone I won't be bothered by the rather stark improvement in screen real-estate.

Will there ever be tech for a front camera behind an actual screen that goes dark only when in use? How impossible is that to do?

It's actually in testing now. SUPPOSEDLY ready for the S11 launch.