Samsung submits to inescapable notch trendNov 11 (AZINS) After fighting against implementing a notch in their smartphones and even mocking those of other companies, Samsung conceded somewhat this week, revealing three upcoming concept designs featuring the cutout.

When the Google Pixel 3 XL came out last month, Samsung didn't hesitate to express distaste for its unusually large notch:

Not less than a month later, though, alongside the much buzzed-about peek at the Infinity Flex foldable display, the company showed off some 2019 smartphone concept designs at a developer conference in San Francisco, and three out of four feature a cutout. Nevertheless, the notches of the Infinity-U and Infinity-V are much smaller than that of the Pixel, resembling more closely the small cleft of Huawei's OnePlus 6T or the Essential Phone. The Infinity-O, on the other hand, features a small circle in the top left corner of the display where we can assume the hardware that notches usually encase shifted.

Unfortunately, only a shadowed view of the upcoming devices on a single slide during the conference was seen. Despite these three notch-featuring models purportedly coming up next year, the fourth New Infinity model allegedly has no cutout whatsoever. While this image was on display, the director of product marketing, Hassan Anjum, conveniently skipped over further discussion of the phone. Since technology isn't quite at notchless display level yet, perhaps this model is a sliding phone like the Oppo Find X or features a pop-up camera like the Vivo APEX concept.

In any case, until Samsung can come up with the tech for a truly notchless device, it seems inevitable if they want to shrink the bezels into non-existence. It seems to be a design feature we're going to have to get used to, because it looks like the notch is here to stay for a while.