Should you cherish curved-screen phones while you still can?

Those who often follow the mobile phone industry should have noticed that in the past six months or so, fewer and fewer mobile phones with curved screens have been released. Especially in the mid - to high - end market above 3000 yuan, where curved screens used to dominate, straight - screen designs have made a large - scale comeback.

Take the OPPO Find X8 series as an example. Except for the X8 Pro, other models including the Ultra use straight screens. Needless to say, for performance flagships focusing on gaming experience, whether it's the iQOO, OnePlus Ace series, or Redmi K series, all of them are designed with straight screens without exception.

According to the news from a gossip site, most of the upcoming large - sized and extra - large - sized flagships from various manufacturers will choose straight - screen IDs. In the author's opinion, curved - screen mobile phones may really be something to "cherish while you can".

So why has the once very popular curved screen suddenly fallen out of favor?

The author will briefly discuss this today.

When it comes to curved - screen mobile phones, many friends may first think of the Samsung S6 edge. However, the first batch of curved - screen mobile phones appeared earlier, namely the Samsung Galaxy Round and the LG G Flex.

Samsung Galaxy Round

Different from the later well - known curved screens that bulge upwards from both sides, these two models have an inward - concave design.

LG G Flex

Similar to some curved - screen monitors today, but these two models didn't make much of a splash back then. They were more like concept products, mainly serving as carriers to showcase flexible - screen technology.

What really caught everyone's attention regarding curved screens should be the Samsung Note Edge released in 2014. As an "exploratory version" of the Galaxy Note 4, this phone used a very special single - sided curved - screen design, with a uniqueness that is unparalleled in the history of the mobile phone industry.

Samsung Galaxy Note edge

Back then when everyone was still using straight screens, it was quite a sci - fi look. Samsung also made functional adaptations for this curved - screen area, such as a side shortcut toolbar and always - on display.

It can be seen that in the initial stage of curved - screen development, Samsung really considered giving it some practical value through certain functions.

Later, the S6 edge adopted the more familiar double - curved screen form. The curved screen and its visual effect of the screen floating above the body officially entered the mainstream view with the release of this flagship.

It has to be said that coming up with such a design in 2015 was truly a technological superiority, worthy of the title of "Android flagship king".

With the popularity of the S6 and S7 edge flagships, Samsung finally managed to make the curved screen popular. And because of its more prominent recognition, sense of technology, and relatively high production cost, the curved screen was endowed with a certain high - end attribute and was favored by many other manufacturers.

For example, in 2016, vivo's Xplay 5 and Xplay 6, Xiaomi Note2, and Huawei's Mate 9 Pro were among the earliest batch of domestic flagship phones to use curved screens.

Starting from the S8 series, Samsung no longer emphasized "edge" in its naming because by then, the curved screen had become an internalized family design language.

Later, as the full - screen design became popular, the curved screen, combined with the characteristics of the flexible OLED screen, could make the black borders on both sides narrower and enhance the phone's texture. Naturally, it became the first choice for flagship phones.

Especially from 2019 to 2020, many well - known phones during this period, such as the Huawei P30 Pro, OnePlus 7 Pro/OnePlus 8 Pro, Find X2 Pro, and Xiaomi 10 series, all chose to embrace curved screens.

OnePlus 7 Pro

There even emerged more extreme "waterfall screen" forms like the vivo NEX 3 and Huawei Mate 30 Pro.

Mate 30 Pro waterfall screen

Of course, as curved screens became more widespread in the market, many of their drawbacks were also exposed on a larger scale.

Firstly, there is the issue of accidental edge touches. Especially, the area between the thumb and index finger is prone to touch the screen edge, leading to accidental operations or unresponsive touches. Although manufacturers have optimized anti - accidental touch algorithms later, it is still difficult to completely avoid this problem.

Secondly, it affects the display effect at the screen edge. Some models may also have the problem of green edges due to poor viewing angles. Then, curved screens are not resistant to drops. Since the screen protrudes, the risk of the screen breaking when the edge hits the ground during a fall increases significantly. Moreover, it is difficult to apply screen protectors, especially tempered glass protectors, which are prone to edge lifting and bubbling problems.

However, correspondingly, curved screens have certain aesthetic advantages over straight screens visually and can also have a certain thinning effect on the feel.

In the following years, curved screens were still widely adopted by manufacturers and even spread to the mid - and low - end markets. For a period of time, using a straight screen could even become a differentiating selling point.

In this process, the traditional large - curvature double - curved screens were gradually abandoned and replaced by slightly curved screens with lower curvature. Finally, the current commonly seen equal - depth slightly curved screens emerged. They not only retain the visual beauty and edge touch feeling of curved screens but also provide a user experience closer to that of straight screens. It seems to be the optimal solution for curved screens.

Interestingly, as the pioneer of the curved - screen form, Samsung was the first to abandon the curved - screen design. As early as the S20 series, it had transitioned to slightly curved screens. Starting from last year's S24 Ultra, it even gave up slightly curved screens and returned to straight screens across the whole series. This actually set an example for other manufacturers still using curved screens.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

So, going back to the beginning of the article, why have manufacturers largely abandoned curved screens in the past year? I think there are mainly the following considerations:

Firstly, the most direct reason is that consumers have called for straight screens. After market research and sales verification, manufacturers have also found that straight screens have a higher market acceptance rate.

The inherent problems of curved screens mentioned earlier, such as accidental touches, green screen edges, poor drop resistance, and difficulty in applying screen protectors, etc., also bring a lot of customer - complaint risks. Choosing straight screens can save a lot of trouble in this regard.

Secondly, it is more cost - effective. Although the manufacturing difficulty and cost of curved screens have decreased after years of popularization, they are still more expensive than straight screens.

Here, we can take the out - of - warranty repair prices of screen components as a reference. For example, the repair cost of the entire screen component of the curved - screen OPPO Find X7 Ultra is 1690 yuan. After the X8 Ultra switched to a straight screen this year, the repair price dropped by 200 yuan, even though the screen substrate was upgraded from BOE X1 to X2.

Another comparison shows the same result. The vivo X200 and X200s are both positioned as mid - sized models, but the repair cost of the straight - screen X200s is lower than that of the equal - depth slightly curved X200.