Smartphones with slightly convex screens began to appear for a long time, although it still seems that it was just a couple of years ago. But no. The pioneers of 2.5D glass in smartphone screens are Nokia and, oddly enough, HTC. In 2011, the Finnish manufacturer introduced the Nokia N9 smartphone based on MeeGo OS, and in 2012 the Taiwanese showed HTC One X based on Android. Both devices, in our understanding, did not have exactly 2.5D glass, but for that time the screen surface was definitely unusual and convex, albeit quite a bit. The history of curved-edge screens started just recently by any measure, with Samsung unveiling the Galaxy Note in 2014 and it had curved glass on one side.
How did both directions develop, which of them turned out to be more interesting and in demand?
With 2.5D glass, everything turned out very simple, because, firstly, it's beautiful. It's no secret that a company needs money to produce smartphones, and for that smartphones need to be sold and sold successfully. At different times, different things were the incentive for successful sales, but the essence remained largely unchanged: in addition to attractive features and capabilities, the device should look good and, importantly, look good on store shelves, in official photos, and so on. Selling ugly and ugly smartphones is difficult. Convex glass, also known as 2.5D glass, gives the phone a few bonus points in appearance. It makes the device more spectacular and beautiful, it's hard to argue with that.
Yes, on the other side of the scale there is an increase in the chances of getting broken glass when dropped, but to be honest, I don't see any other drawbacks of 2.5D glass. It makes the smartphone more attractive than flat glass, it makes the smartphone more comfortable because fingers do not cling to the sharp edges of the front panel of the case. The development of 2.5D glass stopped at a stage when the supplying companies learned to make glass with neat even folds around the edges: beautiful, clear, effective.
Curved glass is another matter. Here, the driving force behind the idea is Samsung with its Edge line. The company initially pursued two goals: to make the devices more spectacular due to glass bends and to add new convenient features. In particular, this is how the Edge Panels menu appeared in the Edge series. What happened in practice?
The first 'edges' came out lumpy – too sharp edges, barely noticeable bends, then it was generally unclear why all this should be done. However, in the S7 Edge series, the bends became smoother, and the number of panels to be placed on the bend of the glass grew all the time, so that quite intelligible scenarios for its use have already appeared. For example, you can put the buttons for calling special menus on the bend so that the panel drops out to the left when you press a certain area that is exactly on the bend and does not interfere with the elements on the desktop of the screen. Yes, to some extent it is convenient, but only as much as you are generally comfortable with a device with a screen curved at the edges. And here everyone is divided into approximately three groups. Some people get used to the curved screen and can easily use the device with this feature and all its advantages. Others like the things a curved screen (Edge panels) allows you to do, but don't like the curves themselves, as I do. Such people buy a case for a smartphone, it eliminates the problems associated with a curved screen. The third group is those who absolutely cannot use such smartphones: they constantly cling to the edges of the screen with their fingers, make random presses with their palms, and so on. I belong rather to the third group, and if it were not for the camera in the device, I would not even buy it, because personally I have a lot of erroneous taps on the screen with a curved display in S7 Edge, and this is incredibly annoying. At the same time, I have a device in a case, without it I simply could not use my smartphone normally.
The 'total' is simple. In my opinion, the idea of 2.5D glass has harmoniously intertwined with modern smartphones, and today most devices, not only in the top and middle segments, but some also in the budget (Meizu, for example), are made with such glasses. It's simple, it's beautiful, and to some extent already familiar and expected. The idea of curved glass at the edges is not yet so confident. In a sense, because it is being promoted by actually one company (Samsung), and because its implementation is not so simple, and the idea itself is not just the beauty of a smartphone, but also the presence of additional chips. However, now Chinese companies want to repeat what they did at Samsung – we will soon see curved screens in the flagships from Xiaomi and Meizu, the company Vivo and has already presented such a device.
What do you think about 2.5D glass and curved glass, dear readers?