Creating an attractive smartphone is integral to success in today's fast-growing technological climate, therefore new aesthetic designs that catch the eye’s attention are a major focus when the design for a device is in progress. Apart from the beautiful shade of colors and finishes, the display itself can be a huge point of attraction. When it comes to displays, bezel-less is the aim and I can say we’re almost there if not there already. But in the last few years, displays that seamlessly melt well over the vertical edges of the screen have been growing in popularity.
They are incredibly stunning to look at especially when coupled with an OLED or AMOLED screen. Different companies have different names for them, like Huawei's Horizon display and Oppo's Waterfall display, but they are all basically the same. One thing that has been a hindrance to the total acceptance of these types of displays has been the accidental touches and lack of physical buttons. The accidental touches aren’t a big problem though as Huawei has shown on their flagship device, the Mate 30 Pro that it can be managed with software. The lack of physical buttons is a bit harder to fix though.
You could try to replicate the feeling of a physical button with some kind of haptic replacement, but this is one of those things where you just can't beat the physical feel of a button. This problem could be solved by Samsung's new patent which has been brought to light(via PatentlyMobile). The physical buttons we are used to on our devices come out of the frame of the material used to make the phone. But with this patent, Samsung could make a device with the physical buttons protruding out of the display.
This will be the best of both worlds as we will be able to have displays spilling over the sides of the device whiles keeping the feel of the physical button we love.
We do understand that not all patents make it to production but this patent is interesting and one that Samsung should definitely make use of.
Could we see a “Waterfall-like" kind of display on the next Note device? We will have to wait and see. All recent Samsung non-foldable devices feel similar in terms of specs and design. Making this available only on the Note could give it back that distinction in order to further separate it from the devices under the S series.