Why Haven’t Any Android OEM’s Copied Essential’s Notch?

Notches, Notches, Everywhere!

The notch trend in modern mobile devices is a dead horse beaten; that’s for certain. By now we accept, albeit with some embarrassment, that Android OEMs are copying Cupertino’s lead rather mindlessly; BGR readers are squealing with delight, it’s true!

To be fair, the trend in notches is only somewhat A) a copycat of Apple’s design lead and somewhat B) a necessity of a bezel-less design (due to front-facing camera lenses). If that’s a given, then this begs the question, “why haven’t any Android OEMs copied Essential’s notch?” If you’re like me, Essential was the true innovator of the notch and basically arrived at the optimal solution on the first go. In other words, Essential essentially innovated an essential notch from day one. 😉

In other words, Essential essentially innovated an essential notch from day one.

Essential’s Notch > Apple’s Notch… Right?

While the iPhone X’s notch is attractive to many, including most Android OEMs, the X’s notch consumes at least 5x the screen space the tiny Essential notch occupies. It feels inevitable to me that Apple will work on reducing the size of the notch in future versions of the iPhone, unless the notch is abandoned all together. Abandoning the notch seems unlikely though, as it would necessitate the need to use a pop-up front-facing camera (yuck) or an entirely new form of camera lens technology.

Surprisingly a scan of upcoming Android flagships shows that virtually no OEMs are copying Essential’s design in this area. Could it be that Essential itself will not copy their own notch design for the “PH-2”? Perhaps there is an inherent issue with a small notch like that on the Essential PH-1?

What do you think? Don’t see your answer below? Leave a comment!