Samsung Galaxy S10 Leak Shows off Anti-Notch ‘Hole-Punch’ Design

The first big leak of the Samsung Galaxy S10 just arrived a couple months ahead of the flagship’s likely unveiling at Mobile World Congress 2018.

On Thursday, prolific gadget leaker Evan Blass posted a Tweet with a picture of what he says is a model of the upcoming Galaxy S10.

It isn’t the cleanest photo, with a weird cropping job and blurred app icons. But it does seem to reveal a few details about the impending Samsung device.

For one, it seems to cement how anti-notch Samsung is. Instead of the ubiquitous cutout seen on many Android flagships post-iPhone X, the device in the photo sports what has been dubbed a “hole-punch” display.

Basically, it’s a full-screen display design. The only disruption is a single, off-centered hole for the device’s front-facing camera.

It’s an interesting development for a company with a noted record of shamelessly copying Apple. But other Android manufacturers are likely to follow suit and debut their own “hole-punch” devices.

It’s worth noting that Huawei beat Samsung to the punch (no pun intended) by debuting a similar design on the Huawei Nova 4.

On the other hand, while the Galaxy S10 may be notch-less, that might not be the case for all future Samsung phones. At a keynote event last year, Samsung debuted a series of next-generation display designs with different styles of cutouts.

Blass said that the pictured device is the standard model of the Galaxy S10, apparently codenamed “Beyond 1.” That may suggest that it’ll be the cheaper and smaller of the three Galaxy S10 models released this year.

Samsung is also expected to debut a Galaxy S10 Plus and an S10 with support for 5G networks. There are also rumors that Samsung will debut a more budget-friendly option akin to the iPhone XR.

In addition to the leaked design, Blass also noted that the Samsung S10 will be able to wirelessly charge other compatible devices — like handsets and wearables.

In any case, the camera hole-punch will mark the first time that Samsung has killed off the bezels on its flagship devices. And it might just signal the next trend in smartphone display design — at least among Android handsets.