The Galaxy Note 10, now expected to launch on August 7th, is hardly a secret anymore. We’ve seen plenty of leaks that have confirmed the phone’s design and even the sky-high price tag has been outed. The Note 10 will come in two sizes, both featuring the same Infinity-O display that will have curved edges with tiny top and bottom bezels. In many ways, the Galaxy Note 10 will be similar to the Galaxy S10 when it comes to specs, but an insider now claims the phone will have a futuristic feature that no other popular smartphone has — not even the iPhone. If this rumor is accurate, it will give Samsung an advantage over almost all competitors out there when it comes to design.
Ice Universe, a reliable Samsung leaker, explained on Twitter that the Note 10 will have bezels as narrow as the iPhone, and that’s possible thanks to a new display innovation: Sound on Display (SoD) tech.
Note 10's "chin" is very narrow, the same level as the iPhone, no speaker grooves on the forehead, which means that the flagship Sound on Display(SoD) technology will replace the traditional speaker. The forehead will be narrower. pic.twitter.com/6aRGQIG0ee
— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) June 19, 2019
Instead of having to place a speaker at the top of the phone, Samsung can turn the screen itself into a speaker. This tech has been in the making for quite a while, and Samsung is one of the two companies that can pull it off. The other one is LG, which launched its LG V8 ThinQ earlier this year, the world’s first phone with SoD tech. LG, however, hasn’t been able to match Samsung for a long time when it comes to flagship smartphone sales.
The Galaxy S10 still features a speaker at the top. It’s almost invisible, but it’s there. SoD screens will allow Samsung and every other company that sources OLED screens from Samsung Display to further reduce the size of their top bezels.
The iPhone 11, meanwhile, isn’t expected to drop the front-facing speaker anytime soon, and certainly not this year on the iPhone 11. Apple is rumored to stick with the same iPhone X notch design for at least one more generation of handsets, which means the front speaker isn’t going anywhere for the time being. Google’s Pixel 4, one other highly anticipated handset of the second half of 2019, will also have a speaker at the top, right in the middle of a pretty thick top bezel.
