Do Front Cameras Reduce Notification Icon Space?

[consultant]

I'm considering picking one of these up (refurb) and I've never had a phone with notch or with cameras in the screen area. Front camera has been in the bezel area right above the screen. It looks like the two front cameras on this device are essentially embedded into the screen. Does that mean there is less display areas for notification icons or does the device allow for two rows of notification icons + time/battery display up top?

 

[dontpanicbobby]

No it doesn't.
You'll hardly notice.

 

[AshS23]

I'm considering picking one of these up (refurb) and I've never had a phone with notch or with cameras in the screen area. Front camera has been in the bezel area right above the screen. It looks like the two front cameras on this device are essentially embedded into the screen. Does that mean there is less display areas for notification icons or does the device allow for two rows of notification icons + time/battery display up top?

Depends on the phone as some phones have really disturbing notches, but no, it is quite easy to see notifications even with a notch.

 

[Hadron]

The problem is that Google limit the space for notifications to make room for notches even on phones that don't have a notch (e.g. my Pixel 2).

So on the plus side, actually having a camera there isn't going to hurt you. On the minus side, this is only because Google are, despite employing some very smart people, a bunch of idiots.

 

[consultant]

I would think it's negligible on the phones with only one front camera. On phones with two like the S10 5G (think the plus also) it's a significant drop in status notification space in my opinion. I found an article to confirm it and there's a setting to let you turn on a virtual top bezel. Considering these phones are 19:9 aspect ratio and a standard HD video is 16:9 in my opinion turning the virtual bezel on, on the S10+ and S10 5G seems like a no-brainer if you typically have a lot of notification icons. There very small amount of screen space you lose wouldn't really have any functional impact. I think the only downside is some people may prefer to have a display covering the entire screen at the expense of status notification space. Guess I will experiment between the two and see what I end up liking best.

https://gadgetguideonline.com/s10/how-to-use-galaxy-s10-virtual-bezel-to-hide-the-front-camera-cutout-without-using-any-apps

"The hole must keep a certain distance from the curved part. This results in a significantly-reduced area for the status bar. So, Galaxy S10 has to offer the option for you to reduce the number of notification icons on the status bar or even hide/disable the notification icons on the status bar entirely...
If you want to hide the front cutout on Galaxy S10, you can use Galaxy S10 virtual bezel to achieve it at the cost of reduced screen size."