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Comment by rnernento | Hacker News Reader

Why does my $500 Samsung Galaxy Book Flex have the webcam in a tiny little bezel and this thing has a giant notch?

I think the only excuse for that huge notch has to be they are planning to put Face ID in there at some point in the near future and don't want the design language to change again when that happens. i.e they are pre-reserving that space in the menu bar.

Face ID and some lidar stuff most likely, the notch being the same shape and size as the iPhone one is not a coincidence.

Lidar... in a laptop?!

The latest iPads and iPhones have a LIDAR on the back camera. They can be used to scan the environment. And the FaceID setup for the front-facing camera is used to create those animated memojis that match your face.

If you add it to a laptop, it could actually map the background environment and do some really fancy processing for video calls. Or even improve audio based on the room shape it sees.

https://www.apple.com/in/newsroom/2020/03/apple-unveils-new-...

Right? And not in a Tesla that’s supposed to drive itself.

(They’re not the same kinds of LiDAR, but still…)

Compare the webcams. 1080p resolution looks mighty different on some cameras than others and isn't a good descriptor by itself of quality.

Considering how the one in the studio display is famously bad, that is not reassuring at all.

https://9to5mac.com/2022/04/26/apples-studio-displays-poor-w...

Most likely design consistency; to have the same design element across all devices

It's going to look even more outdated when the 2022 iPhones remove the notch.

make every laptop look the same with a huge notch even if its not strictly necessary...?

It's Apple, necessity isn't their design language

And that too nothing much special - 1080p resolution.

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