The Law of Shrinking Bezels – ‘Bezel Crush Saga’

Etymology of the word Bezel describes it as a 16th Century word used for the grove that surrounds the crystal in a watch or jewelry. In modern day lingo, a Bezel is simply the outer frame of a computer, monitor or a phone screen.

Technically it is of significance as it helps the product designers and engineers to evaluate the overall perimeter of a device. With advent of newer compact components, bezels have continued to shrink for smartphones.

Like the initial version of the Apple iPad had huge bezels on all sides as compared to the latest models which have shrunk it to minimal. There are certain manufacturers who have already achieved the NIL bezel benchmark, like the Samsung Galaxy 7 & 8 and the Xiaomi Mi Mix.

Oflate, less-Bezel or even Bezel-less has become talk of the town among consumers. The ad campaigns run by manufacturers give the buyer an impression that when they buy a phone with big Bezels, the waste money on extra space which could be gained while buying a Bezel-less phone which implies a more screen area for the user. More recently, less-Bezel also means better screen aspect ratio.

Most of the buyers check Display Size of the Smartphone they are buying. Which is just a diagonal measure of the screen in “Inches”. But this diagonal measure only shows how Big the inner-screen is and does not measure the bezel around it. This leads to confusion where buyer perceives phone body (Length x Width) to be exactly in similar to the Display Size.

To avoid such confusion for the buyer, “Screen-to-body ratio” is refered. This is the true measure of screen-size of the device. It tells the buyer how much of the actual surface the screen represents when compared to the whole device. A device with 100% ratio would have no visible body when looked at from the front.

ScreentoBody ratios for some of the latest Smartphones are :

  • Apple iPhone X: 82.9%
  • Samsung Galaxy S8 : 83.6%
  • Samsung Galaxy S8 plus : 84.0%
  • Samsung Galaxy Note8 : 83.2%
  • Xiaomi Mi Mix 2: 80.8%
  • LG V30 : 81.2%
  • Essential PH-1 : 84.9%

A Bezel-less smartphone depicts future-proof design to the user. Some manufacturers like Apple and Samsung are ready to give away their iconic Home Buttons to pave way for an all around Bezel-less screen experience.

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