The notch enables slimmer display borders and features like Face ID on the new iPhones and a dual selfie camera system on Google's Pixel 3 XL. But if you prefer a phone without the notch, your choices are limited – at least among the best smartphone picks. Fox News has compiled a list of five of the best. The Pixel phone line was first introduced just a little more than two years ago. The third generation Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL (the latter now with a notch) are among the best smartphones on the planet.

This morning, we explain what a terrible year cryptocurrency had -- I hope you didn't remortgage your house. Meanwhile, Xbox seems ready to have a strong 2019, and drones plunge one of the UK's biggest airports into chaos. After five years, two mid-generation console releases and a brand-new gamepad...Xbox is poised to dominate the next console generation While the Switch and PS4 are riding high in this console cycle, Microsoft is better positioned than any other video-game company to take control of the coming one, which is expected to kick off in 2020. Living the Marty McFly dream.Nike's first self-lacing basketball shoes go on sale in 2019 for $350 On Nike's quarterly earnings call, executives revealed plans for an'Adaptive' basketball shoe that will cost around $350. That's about $400 cheaper than last year's HyperAdapt trainers, but more expensive than the Jordan XXXIII with its strap the wearer adjusts on their own.

Huawei's latest phone is something rather special. The Mate 20 Pro packs more cutting-edge technology into it than any other, but unlike most bleeding-edge devices it makes for a great experience. It looks like an iPhone XS mated with a Samsung Galaxy Note 9, with a huge curved 6.39in OLED display and big notch in the top. The screen is great and hides a good pressure-sensitive in-display fingerprint scanner. The curved sides and narrow width makes the massive screen manageable.

For $1,000, the premium Galaxy Note 9 is a superb phone that showcases the best Samsung has to offer. It's also the phone most of you won't need. That's because you can get many of the same features in Samsung's Galaxy S9 for a few hundred dollars less. The Note 9, available Friday, is the Android smartphone for those who want the latest and the greatest. FILE- In this Aug. 7, 2018, file photo the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is shown in New York.

As it gears up to move into a new home (a Galaxy Home, to be specific), Bixby is far from ready. Samsung's digital assistant has become infamous for its tardiness, and even after showing up late to the AI party, Bixby doesn't have much to show for the extra time. It's not smarter than the rest and doesn't offer any new tricks, even in the recently announced Galaxy Home, other than perhaps better sound quality. As much as I'm excited about Samsung potentially giving Amazon, Google and Apple some competition in the smart speaker space, I'm pretty sure they have nothing to worry about, if my time with Bixby on the Note 9 is any indication. To be clear, Samsung still hasn't launched the Bixby-powered Galaxy Home speaker, and no one seems to have published an in-depth hands-on with it.

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AP – Samsung's new smartphone illustrates the limits of innovation at a time when hardware advances have slowed. The new phone, the Galaxy Note 9, will be faster and will last longer without a recharge. But while earth-shattering new features are in short supply, it will carry an earth-shattering price tag: $1,000. The minor improvements reflect a smartphone industry that has largely pushed the limits on hardware. Major changes tend to come every few years rather than annually, and this isn't the year for anything revolutionary in the Note.

Samsung understandably focused most of its attention on the Galaxy Note 9 at its Unpacked event, but it also used the media gathering to unveil the next generation of Bixby, and... well, it's a mixed bag. The new AI helper delivers some sincerely helpful functional improvements. It can find events near you, and will not only attach Yelp ratings when you search for things to do, but deliver results based on your personal preferences. If you're fond of sushi, for instance, those restaurants will float to the top. You can also reserve restaurants, hail Uber rides and perform certain other tasks right from Bixby, with tight Spotify integration on the way. Adobe added that its document scanning technology was baked into Bixby Vision, helping you turn receipts and forms into easily readable files.

It uses artificial intelligence to identify elements of a photo, such as scene and subject, to automatically classify it into one of 20 categories and instantly optimise it based on the category. If the first shot doesn't come out right, the Galaxy Note9 lets users know there's something wrong, so they can take another picture without losing the moment. An immediate notification will appear if the image is blurry, the subject blinked, there is a smudge on the lens, or there's backlight impacting the quality of the image. It also comes with advanced noise reduction technology, and a Dual Aperture lens, which adjusts to light just like the human eye. That mans that, no matter the lighting conditions, the camera should deliver a crystal-clear shot. The Galaxy Note9 builds on Samsung Electronics' legacy of innovative camera technologies with an intelligent camera that takes the work out of capturing a photo New functions including Scene Optimizer and Flaw Detection utilize artificial intelligence to help users get the most out of the device's advanced camera Galaxy Note9's Flaw Detection automatically scans it for flaws and notifies you if any are found.

Samsung's new high-end smartphone alerts owners to problems with their photos as soon as they are snapped. The Galaxy Note 9 uses software to identify if the images are blurry or whether the subject is blinking, among other issues. The innovation is one of several artificial intelligence-enhanced abilities the handset offers that do not rely on remote computer servers. Analysts say this should help tackle increasing competition from Huawei. The Chinese rival made much of its own flagship phone's machine learning abilities when it launched in March. The Note 9's other new features include a stylus that wirelessly communicates with the phone to act as a remote control.