Holey moly! Samsung has taken the wraps off its Galaxy A8s, a new midrange phone with a very notable feature: instead of a notch, the device's selfie-camera is built directly into top-left corner of the screen. Samsung calls this "Infinity-O", but this long-teased technology is more commonly being referred to as a holed (or hole-punch) display. For the sake of politeness, let's call it a camera cut-out.
Other than the camera cut-out, the Galaxy A8s is a fairly standard midrange device. It has a 6.4-inch 1080p+ display, a Snapdragon 710 processor, at least 6GB of RAM, 128GB of expandable storage, three rear-cameras on the back, and a 24MP hole-punch selfie-camera. Notably, this is the first Samsung smartphone to not include a headphone jack.
International pre-orders for the Galaxy A8s will kick off before the end of the year, but there's currently no word about whether we'll see it in Australia.
While the Galaxy A8s might be the might first phone with a camera cut-out, it certainly won't be the last. Huawei and sister-brand Honor are gearing up to announce their own camera cut-out devices before the end of the year. Leaked images suggest the next OPPO R-series device could use similar technology, and there's plenty of speculation around whether Samsung will use the same kind of screen on the Galaxy S10.
We're expecting notched displays to kick around for a little bit longer, but it certainly looks like 2019 will be the year of the hole.
Alex Choros
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