Samsung said to have begun Infinity-O display manufacturing, possibly for Galaxy S10

Samsung has reportedly begun mass production of Infinity-O displays. These are OLED displays featuring a hole for the front camera that some say the company will use on the Galaxy S10.

ETNews reports Samsung has updated its existing manufacturing facilities to allow for their production. If the report is accurate, the timing would suggest the display could ready for the S10, expected around March.

The main advantage of this type of screen is Samsung would be able to increase the screen-to-body ratio of its phone without adding a sliding mechanism or a notch. Current Samsung flagships house the camera in the top bezel, giving them larger bezels competing Android flagships.

The downside to the hole is that while it will likely be smaller than most notches, it will still obstruct a part of the display. Additionally, while some phones include software to hide notches in the status bar (if the user doesn’t like the look of them), this may be harder to achieve with the Infinity-O display’s cutout due to its positioning (see the image above).

With this in mind, the Infinity-O rumors don’t necessarily match up with what we’ve previously heard about the phone; namely that the higher-end version could get either a dual front-facing camera setup or 3D sensors. Both these features will presumably need more than one hole in the display to work.

This leaves us with a few possibilities.

Samsung may only use the Infinity-O display in the version of the Galaxy S10 with just one front-facing camera. Alternatively, Samsung could have worked out a way to put one of the cameras under the screen itself. While this is something Samsung is known to be working on, it is thought the company hasn’t quite mastered the technology yet. It’s also possible that some of these rumors are simply incorrect.

In any case, the contrasting stories are a good reminder that, while a lot has already been speculated about the phone, nothing is certain just yet.

Next up: Samsung Galaxy S10: What we know about Samsung’s next big thing