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In short: Samsung’s Galaxy S10 lineup will feature screens with a 19:9 aspect ratio that will be even taller than the existing Infinity Display panels which utilize an 18.5:9 image format, one known industry insider from China said earlier today. The shift to a slimmer aspect ratio is in line with Samsung’s recent promise of a major design change set to debut with the new Android flagship family, with the upcoming handsets also being expected to deliver even slimmer bezels. While the 19:9 image format is traditionally associated with handsets that feature a display notch (and act as 18:9 devices when not accounting for the cutout), the Galaxy S10 line almost certainly won’t have such an asymmetrical screen.
Background: Earlier this week, an HTML5test benchmark listing suggested Samsung is working on a 19:9 device and while its model number (SM-G405F) was initially associated with the Galaxy Xcover series or an entirely new product range, the aforementioned insider claims Samsung has a history of masking Galaxy S-series prototypes with SM-G4x0 and SM-G4x5 identifiers. The upcoming flagship lineup is rumored to consist of three models, with one of them being set to feature a QHD+ resolution of 3,040 by 1,440 pixels. Assuming the May rumor indicating at least one Galaxy S10-series model will have a pixel density of over 600 pixels per inch is true, the SM-G405F is almost certainly the smallest member of the 2019 product family whose screen diagonal isn’t longer than 5.6 inches, which would amount to 600.7 PPI. At that size, the device would be one of the best solutions for mobile virtual reality applications ever created, though Samsung has been winding down its VR focus in recent years and other advantages of such a high-fidelity screen are scarce, at least as far as consumer-grade smartphones are concerned.
Impact: Assuming the SM-G405F is truly a pre-production Galaxy S10 model, Samsung appears to be set to innovate in the mobile design space once again by debuting the world’s first 19:9 handset without a display notch. Despite the model number in question likely being a placeholder, it’s indicative of an international device variant, i.e. one powered by a Samsung-made Exynos chip. In the case of the Galaxy S10, that silicon should be called the Exynos 9820, as several industry insiders claimed earlier this year.