With 2018 drawing to a close, we got to see many new features including waterdrop notch, in-display fingerprint sensor, quad-cameras, artificial intelligence integration and much more. These trends, though attracted eyes, are still not much popular and expected to grow over next year.
Welcoming 2019, smartphone manufacturers are desperately waiting to launch their new smartphones featuring new technologies. Here’s a list of few innovations expected to arrive next year.
Foldable smartphones
Samsung already teased its foldable phone, probably named the Galaxy F. However, more of them are expected to come at some point in 2019, including Huawei’s. As the name entails, foldable smartphones are actually smartphones-cum-tablets with bendable screens that can be unfolded to become a mini tablet. Some of the prototypes are expected to be introduced as early as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2019 in January, but obviously, they would probably be hard on pocket too.
5G phones
After 4G/LTE connectivity, the upcoming 5G smartphones are expected to come in 2019 too, offering incredible speeds of internet uploads and downloads. Though the innovation is still in early stages, but at some point next year, we might get to see in some of the flagships such as OnePlus, Samsung, and Huawei among others.
Evolution of the notch design
Made a trend by Apple, the notch design was soon adopted by other smartphone manufacturers as well. As makers started to go towards bigger edge-to-edge displays, they started eliminating home buttons, or fingerprint sensors from the phone’s front, but the cutout was still required for the selfie cameras.
However, the notch was reduced more and more such as the inclusion of waterdrop notch or just a circular notch for the front camera surrounded by display, as seen in Samsung’s latest Galaxy A8s. 2019 might bring in more notch designs and positions or maybe complete removal of them, maybe by introducing an in-display camera.
In-display fingerprint sensor
Though in-display fingerprint sensors have already been introduced in some phones this year, some major smartphone brands still lack them including Samsung. The technology is expected to grow more next year with more manufacturers welcoming the innovation.
Increase in camera lenses’ quantity
From single to double to triple and now quad, camera quantities in smartphones seems to be increasing rapidly. Many phones have started featuring multiple back and front cameras to improve the photo quality more and more and giving DSLR-like results. Next year we might to get to see more cameras, considering an LG patent that described a camera with 16 lenses.
2018 for sure gave us some eye-opening innovations within smartphones and left us for wanting some more. 2019 is expected to bring in more of these innovations, integrating new technologies and making all-in-one smartphones.