Can you explain why? What benefit does it have? It is there to house a part which they weren't able to place anywhere else? Or is there really something that the notch "does"?

I'm not wild about the notch, but to be fair, the iPhone X is the only phone without any "chin" on the lower bezel which probably gives more of an immersive feel despite the assymetry of the notch at the top.

The Android OEMs are copying the top notch without removing the chin, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

It's very difficult to fill the the bottom corners with screen.

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/70g52z/why_does_the_...

@darkersid : wow, this sounds so weird to me. If anything, this hole in the screen distracts from any immersion and constantly reminds me of the chrome of what I am looking at whereas I usually completely stop noticing the chrome of my phone after one week of use.

Yeah it really is nonintuitive, but it's been my experience. It's almost like seeing the notch there reminds me of the space around it.

Do you have an essential too?

It's the immersiveness of a bezel-less display. It might not affect everyone as strongly, but for me, other phones now feel constricting.

I don't know, Samsung's S6/S7/S8/S9 has had edge-to-edge displays for years as well (in the horizontal dimension at least) without a notch. I'm guessing I need to check-out in a shop for myself.

I find vertical real estate so much more valuable, and just feels more freeing to have that extra space.