Comments on post “Samsung Galaxy S8”
Kyle Lamy
@kalamyty · Director of Engineering
Curved edge displays have always seemed a bit gimicky to me. Are they really that much better than a normal screen? If you have one, would you miss going back to a normal screen?
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Matthew Boogaard
@boogsau · Director
@kalamyty I agree. Especially since a lot of people put cases on them to protect their expensive new toy from drops and scratches.
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Noah Kim
@wuss · Startup in Progress ▓▓▓▓░░░░░░░░ 30%
@kalamyty Overall I think it's a nice feature and not gimmicky (speaking from owning an s7 edge). The one thing I really hate about it is that I believe the s7 edge is actually ever-so-slightly more curved than what the note 8 (before it got recalled), and it actually had a problem with palm rejection since your palm hits the actual screen itself since there's no bezel.
It would throw the keyboard, or any touch event haywire regularly. You eventually learn to work around it, but from what I understand the Note 8 had fixed this by lessening how much it wrapped around, as well as software fixes. It's not as much of a problem for me now.
It's great because you do get more screen real estate in a more compact phone. Take for instance the s7 edge, which is a 5.5" screen. It's almost the size of an iPhone 7. Then take my iPhone 6S Plus which is also 5.5", but it's so ridiculously larger all around.
There's very little that goes on in most UI on the left and right most edges, so it actually ends up really optimizing screen real estate and size. Edge swipes actually feel way better on a curved screen as well. It feels more in line with what you're actually trying to do (i.e. "pull" a sheet/page from the edge).
As far as all the silly edge widgets/apps samsung ships, they're pretty dumb. If I had to point out any that could possibly be useful, one is the edge clock. It actually has a tiny little clock that you can show in "night mode", so that when you rollover in bed and want to check the time, and your phone is lying flat on its back as it commonly is, you can still see information. Same goes for news feeds, etc.. The other probably-not-that-useful-but-possibly app is the edge color notifications. If you put your phone face down, you can set notification preferences for the edge of the screen to pulsate specific colors and it emanates from the phone in a way that kind of lights up your desk.
All in all, half the pros is because of the actual curve itself, and the other half is because what the curve implies, which is no bezel.
BTW, cases do NOT impede the bezelessness. S7 edge cases cover the top and bottom, but kind of get out of the way on the sides so theres not an additional bumper/bulge on the side that ends up negating the curve.
Waiting to make my little chuckle when the iphone 8 comes out with a curved edge and it's exclaimed a revolutionary design. Will I get one? Absolutely, it will be a gorgeous phone either way ;).
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Kyle Lamy
@kalamyty · Director of Engineering
@wuss thanks for the info! you make some good points on a larger screen size in a smaller package, I just always assumed it wouldn't really look great seeing a curved image on the edges. I'll have to take a closer look in person at it!
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