We asked, you told us: You'd rather have bigger bezels than a notch

It’s no secret that most people dislike display notches. Unfortunately, as most customers want completely bezel-less phones, there’s currently no way to avoid the cutout until under display sensor tech advances past the prototype stage.

To avoid notches, smartphone manufacturers like Samsung retain large forehead and chin bezels to house the various sensors while Oppo, Xiaomi, and others have built sliding mechanisms that expose the front-facing sensors only when they’re needed.  So we decided to ask you, how do you wish phone manufacturers would circumvent the display design choice?

What’s your favorite notch alternative?

Results

Unsurprisingly, over 58 percent of the participants on our polls across the website, Twitter, and YouTube voted that they would rather have a smartphone with larger bezels like those on the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 than have a notched display.

Despite being an innovative approach to hiding the front-facing sensors, only a quarter of the voters were interested in manual or automatic slider mechanisms. While the design might seem incredibly cool, many people appear to fear that the moving parts will end up breaking with extended use.

Interestingly, 17 percent of you voted that you actually didn’t mind the notch. Digging into the comments, it appears that those who selected that option don’t see why people hate notches so much. One common sentiment was that notches don’t offer the most beautiful designs, but you tend to forget about it after a couple of minutes.

Noteworthy comments

As expected, most people were adamant that they would never buy a phone with a notch. Here are some of the standout comments from this week’s poll:

• I won’t buy any phone with a notch, and moving parts is just begging for problems.
• I think I should wait for under display front camera and having ultra thin or even no bezels
• No notch. Camera in the chin. Rotate phone 180 degrees if you want the camera on top of the screen when you use it..
• I like the note 9s top bezel because it’s packed with features and bezels are needed for good cases also. If theres an edge screen over my entire phone there’s no way to attach the case securely. Cases can have useful features.

Surprisingly, there was a small number of readers that voiced an indifference about notches:

• I don’t have an issue with bezels. But they’re not in fashion, so non-moving notches it will be. I like the minimal ones, like Essential, or the OnePlus 6T ‘nipple’ … but really, you eventually just move on and focus on other things. I don’t like ’em, but I can live with ’em.
• I’ve never seen a problem with bezels. Ever. It’s a manufactured problem device makers came up with in an effort to add something different to an industry that was starting to stagnate design wise. Nothing more and nothing less. Until the under screen tech is ready for the public I’m perfectly happy with regular old bezels. As far as bezels go though I really like the Razer Phone bezels because they make use of the whole space. 

And then there are some who see value in a smartphone OEM ditching the front-facing camera on some of its phones:

• Personally…. I’d like to see models with no front camera for those who aren’t involved with themselves. It should be part of the digital well being initiative. Mi mix 3 is the best solution so far imo.
• Agreed. The front camera is probably the least important feature of a smartphone to me. I probably use it around 5-10 times a year and in each instance could have used the rear camera if I really had to. The amount of design compromises mfgs are making to accommodate it just aren’t worth it.

• No notch and no selfie camera. Just a small display on the back to make selfies with primary camera.

That’s it for this week, everyone. As always, thanks for voting, thanks for the comments, and don’t forget to let us know what you thought of the results below.