Samsung Infinity-O camera hole is big, Huawei wants to be first

Unless you go for sliders/elevators or ignore them completely, it seems that cutouts are an inescapable fact of smartphone life. At least for the time being. All that manufacturers can do is try to come up with ways to minimize or hide that notch. It seemed for a while that the "waterdrop" notch was going to be the compromise but Samsung obviously has other, stranger ideas. However, in typical Huawei fashion, the Chinese might try to beat Samsung to the punch.

Samsung has trademarked a couple of Infinity names, including Infinity-U, Infinity-V, and Infinity-O. Those are believed to refer to the shape of the notches that they have and, understandably, the Infinity-O cutout is the most interesting. According to rumors, that involves punching a circular hole near the top of the screen just for the camera. And that is expected to eventually make it to the Galaxy S10 but not before testing the waters on the Galaxy A8s.

That "feature" is already proving to be a bit controversial and new information about the cutout might cause even more worries. According to a leak, the Galaxy A8s' cutout will measure 6.7 mm in diameter. The same source reassures readers that the Galaxy S10 version won't be as big but will still be slightly above 3 mm. That is going to be larger than the front camera hole on the Galaxy Note 9 which, when put within the actual screen, is probably going to be more than just a distraction.

Don't worry, Samsung won't be alone in this insanity. In fact, it might not even be the first. Another leak claims that Huawei, who wants to snatch the crown of top smartphone company from Samsung, will come out with its own Infinity-O style phone before the Korean company. Both that and the Galaxy A8s are expected to debut next month, so it's really just a race against time.

Whether this hole makes sense or not and whether it's just a brief, passing fad, one can only hope. It's bad enough to have cutouts on top, we probably don't want holes in our screens as well. Not unless Samsung can do some magic and make that hole disappear when not needed.