The screen almost completely covers the phone, except the notch and a small bezel on the bottom. That's the point.

iPhone XS resolution: 5.8 inches at 2436 x 1125 pixels.

Nokia 7.1 resolution: 5.8-inch at 2280 x 1080 pixels.

The notch gives them nothing here, in fact it eats up pixels they could have used to make the resolution better. At least the iphone screen is dense enough to say "eh, we don't need those pixels".

What do you think the notch is for? From your comment it sounds like you think it's just for show. How does it eat pixels? The alternative would be to have a smaller screen. Also the difference in resolution is so minor it doesn't matter.

Doing the same thing cheaper is a perfectly valid design choice

I so agree with this.

Would you drive a Chinese car that looked like a German car?

When you straight copy a design, it signals that you don't give a shit about what you're doing. Safety? Security? Quality? Fuck it.

Doing the same quality cheaper is better.

When it comes to signalling with phones, it's losing signalling value at accelerating pace. It's starting to be a bulk screen you carry in your pocket.

Top 10 Chinese knockoff cars vs. the original designs

https://driving.ca/lexus/auto-news/entertainment/top-10-chin...

I thought you might think this is funny.

Funny, people used to say exactly this about Japanese cars. We all know how that turned out.

who cares its a decent phone at a great price point?

People have a irrational fear of notches on the internet. In real life I never saw anyone caring about it but on the internet people get defensive/aggresive when they see one.

so weird... it must be where one lives too, people where i live would love this phone