The 'notch' is the most controversial design element in the world of smartphones, especially since the Apple's iPhone X launch last year. Numerous Android manufacturers have started implementing this design feature on their flagships starting this year. Huawei is one of them that has recently revealed its latest smartphones ( including Huawei P20) with this design element.
Huawei P20
However, the company claims that they haven't been copying the notch in view of the fact that they were the ones who really invented the notch. This comes from the Huawei's vice president Li Changzhu in a Forbes report, where he has stated that their firm had first designed the notch "three to four years ago" but refused to bring into the market or production. He said, 'they believed that the market wasn't ready for the drastic design diversity yet. Later, the company had decided to hold back because of the concerns of acceptance from users.
“Consumers, especially those in China, like symmetry, and the notch is not perfect in Chinese culture. They like squares or circles—like rounded corners [of the display]. That’s perfect,” he said.
He later admitted about Apple's courage in implementing the notch on the iPhone X and even regretted in holding back of their initial invention.
“[Apple] using the notch was courage,” he said. “We missed our chance to [pioneer] with the notch design. Because we were too conservative and cautious.”
Despite of compromising the most crucial feature – TouchID, Apple had managed to achieve the increased screen real estate with almost no-bezels by implementing the new 3D facial recognition system.
However, for Android OEMs the notch mostly makes it look a design feature with more edge-to-edge screens for all devices at all price ranges.
