While Samsung is definitely not following Huawei's suit in following Apple's «notched» flagship
smartphone design direction, at least not yet, word around the water cooler today is the Galaxy S9 and S9 + will still look to «borrow» and possibly polish one of the iPhone X's standout features.
Love or hate Sony's new flagship
smartphone design direction, at least the Xperia XZ2 looks different.
Not exact matches
Thanks to its swivel
design, you can adjust the speaker to project in various
directions around the room, plus it's got wireless bluetooth capability which means you can use it as a speaker for music from your
smartphone (great to bring to the pool when you're on vacation!)
As we introduce an all new
direction for our
smartphone portfolio, we remain focused and committed to pushing the boundaries of what an affordably priced
smartphone can be, providing even richer experiences and flagship style
designs for our customers around the globe.
Purely on a
design standpoint, the Samsung Galaxy S9 isn't a drastic change from last year's Galaxy S8, but that's more a fault of the limited number of
directions smartphone design can go rather than creative cul - de-sac from the South Korean electronics company.
Apple has had a profound impact on
smartphone design as well and even though at least one Android manufacturer embraced the display notch well before the iPhone X, Apple's flagship
smartphone has really popularized the idea so much so that scores of Android manufacturers are moving in that
direction now.
I spent the past week getting to grips with the Galaxy S6 Edge as my primary phone and can now recount the specific quirks of using it and what they might tell us about the
direction in which
smartphone design is headed.
Aggressive
designs have always been a trademark of Razer's high - end gaming computers and accessories, so it obviously came as no surprise to see the company's rookie
smartphone effort follow a similar
direction by pretty much snubbing all of the industry's latest trends.
Still, «the Note8 appears to be the clear
direction of what Samsung believes the premium
smartphone design should look like,» observed Wayne Lam, principal analyst for mobile electronics at IHS Markit.
There weren't so many
design differences between the previously released OnePlus 3 compared to the 3T, but this year's OnePlus 5T seems to be taking a different
direction, probably due to what is going on in the
smartphone world.
It does seem like Samsung is rushing with its decision as it flip - flops on which
direction to go with the
design of its foldable
smartphone.
It's the biggest shift in iPhone
design since Steve Jobs launched that first device, introducing a new range of technologies to Apple's
smartphone as well as shifting the user interface in a whole new
direction.
BlackBerry has announced that it will stop
designing and making its own
smartphones, having already taken its first steps in that
direction with the recent launch of its DTEK50 handset.
What's going to be the next big advancement that comes along to really push
smartphone design in a new
direction?
With almost every major
smartphone OEM reportedly working on bezel-less
designs for the screen, OnePlus 4 could also take this
direction.
Smartwatches have a pretty different
design direction from
smartphones right now.
On top of that, the
design of Zens» car charger means that you're not going to be seeing your phone, so you'll only be able to get (likely muffled) audio
directions from it if you use your
smartphone for navigation.