Smartphone manufacturers have turned to the so-called `hole` design to make a truly bezel-less full-screen phone while sticking to the tradition front-facing camera.

According to industry sources on Tuesday, Samsung Electronics is expected to adopt the design to the Galaxy S 10 in its strategic lineup in the first half of next year. With the hole design, the front side of the phone is fully covered by display pixels with only one tiny hole reserved for camera.

This design will give more room for display than the `notch` design introduced by Apple last year iPhone X. The notch design has no pixel zone in the center of the upper side of the phone, making it look slightly furrowed. It is designed to minimize the bezel and to mount camera, speaker and sensor elements in the notch. It became a mainstream design for smartphones this year as in phones of Huawei, LG Electronics and Xiaomi.

To realize a nearly bezel-less smartphone without a notch, Samsung Electronics unveiled a new design for the Galaxy A8s in October, featuring a tiny hole on the top left side. The company released the `Infinity-O` display design with a similar look during the Samsung Developer Conference (SDC) held in San Francisco early this month.

Apple and Huawei also have a hole design patent. Apple received a smartphone patent for the front design with a hole in one side of the phone from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) this month. Huawei too claims a similar patent.

In July, China’s Vivo and Oppo released the Vivo Nex and the Oppo Find X, respectively, both featuring mechanized, pop-up camera modules in an attempt to bring bezel-less displays to the market.

By Kim Gyu-sik and Minu Kim

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