Your Next Smartphone (Premium)

What has a 6-inch display with an 18:9 aspect ratio and a superior camera? Right. Your next smartphone.

It's been really interesting watching the entire industry rally around this design. First innovated by Samsung with the Galaxy S8 and S8+ and quickly copied by every major smartphone maker on earth, this tall and thin design is the current sweet spot for flagships. But this one has legs, folks. And I think this basic design will come to virtually all smartphones over time, with variances in screen size.

Why is this notable? Because this type of thing hasn't happened since the original iPhone. Once Apple defined the modern smartphone with its multi-touch, display-focused design, virtually the entire industry rallied. Those that didn't perished. In fact, many that did rally still perished.

There have been half-steps since then, for sure. Samsung basically invented the phablet form factor, for example. And in doing so, it didn't just get many smartphone makers to follow suit. It ended up killing the market for mini-tablets. And almost killing the market for full-sized tablets too. (2-in-1 PCs like Surface helped with that latter bit.)

Well, Samsung has done it again. Smartphone makers are tripping all over each other to release their own devices with these tall, thin, and all-display products. OnePlus almost missed the boat by releasing its OnePlus 5 in June with a big forehead and chin, but it scrambled to fix this mistake and will release a 5T model this year that matches the Samsung design. Copying the big guys and selling it for less is, of course, the OnePlus business model.

But it's not just Android. Just as Apple followed others into mini-tablets with the iPad mini, followed Dell into near bezel-less laptops with MacBook, and followed Samsung into phablets with the iPhone Plus, it is doing so again with these tall, thin smartphones: The iPhone X features a sort-of bezel-less design (with a silly huge notch on the top) and a 6-inch-ish (OK, 5.8-inch) with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio. Apple rarely innovates, but it is powerful enough to formalize functionality. So it's only a matter of time before you can't buy a phone without this kind of screen.

There will be further innovations, of course.

Cameras will continue to improve, and it's impossible to imagine any major smartphone maker releasing a flagship handset without meeting a new and very high bar for photo quality.

And companies will continue to innovate with their own unique features. Samsung, for example, is utilizing a curved screen edge that few competitors have tried to copy, so far. Some phones, like the Pixel XP and HTC U11+, have squeezable sides. Apple is showing the world what's like to have a macular hole in their eyes by blocking part of the display with a huge notch. (OK, just kidding on that last one.)

But none of these will likely be as broadly copied as the 6-inch, 18:9 display. This is the modern smartphone.

And the reason you know this is t...