If a new tweet from Evan Blass is anything to go by, fans of HTC’s handsets may not be left unscathed by the push to include Apple-like notches on smartphones after all. The Twitter post, which was published on March 25, claims that the company’s as-yet-unannounced mid-range smartphone, the HTC U12 Life, will feature a notch. There’s not much more information to gather from the post, however, so it isn’t immediately clear what kind of notch will be used. While most OEMs have opted to use a notch similar to the iPhone X, others have chosen a different route – such as that taken by Essential’s PH-1. It remains to be seen how HTC will implement this. On the other hand, it’s also important to note that this could turn out to be entirely incorrect. So the news should probably be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism until HTC reveals something more official.
There isn’t currently much information available about other aspects of HTC’s upcoming mid-range offering. Its specs are not unlikely to resemble a more reserved variation on the company’s HTC U12 Plus flagship, which is expected to launch this Spring. With that said, there’s been no word on any kind of notch on that other device at all. So it may simply be too early to hazard any guesses about its specs at all since the lack of a notch seems to indicate wider variance between the devices.
In the meantime, although the news may come as a blow to those who favor a more traditional design, this move actually makes some sense. Android P is expected to include system-level support for screen notches. The general idea behind that is thought to be an attempt to solve problems that can occur as a result of the notched-display trend in terms of information displayed in the notification bar. As things currently stand, notches make it nearly impossible to see what’s going on in notifications without pulling down the notification shade. Given how popular the trend is, it makes more sense for HTC to include it in a mid-range handset than to just ignore it outright.