A new Samsung-made smartphone with what appears to be an Infinity Display panel was patented by the company with the Korea Intellectual Property Office last month, with the filing itself being officially publicized today. The handset that can be seen below appears to be extremely similar to the Galaxy S8 Plus and may as well be Samsung’s previously released phablet, with the purpose of the patent remaining unclear. The original design was filed even before the Galaxy S8 lineup was announced, having been submitted in December 2016, but was refused over an unspecified issue in late May, more than a month after Samsung’s flagship duo was commercialized.
This particular design also isn’t the only protected intellectual property from the tech giant which denotes a bezel-free handset with an 18.5:9 aspect ratio and minimal bezels, making it even less clear why the company went through the trouble of securing it. The firm noted that the device shown below is meant to be made with a combination of metal, synthetic resin, and glass, which doesn’t reveal any particularly identifiable information. Likewise, the filing mentions the existence of a “personal digital assistant” supported by the handset, most likely referring to Bixby. The device sports a USB Type-C port, 3.5mm audio jack, and a single bottom-facing speaker, with its rear panel being depicted as featuring a single-lens camera setup accompanied by what appears to be a heart rate monitor and a dual-LED (dual-tone) flash unit. The shape of the fingerprint scanner is more oval to that found on the regular Galaxy S8 and corresponds to the Galaxy S8 Plus, though the entire back panel of the newly patented design is meant to be strictly illustrative in nature.
Recent reports suggested that Samsung is planning on updating its mid-range Galaxy A (2018) devices with Infinity Display panels, thus continuing the strategy of trickling down its high-end innovations to its non-premium offerings in the span of a year. The company’s bezel-free design language appears to be part of its core mobile strategy for the time being and even if another Galaxy S8-inspired handset doesn’t end up being commercialized by Samsung, minimal bezels and tall aspect ratios are likely here to stay.
