ENTERING
AN AGE
OF NEAR
BEZEL҃LESS
SMART҃
PHONES
@Y. * ! The advent of smartphones with near bezel-less
displays such as the LG G6 and Samsung Galaxy
S8 got us at HWM thinking: is a near bezel-less display
really that great?
The science behind a bezel-less phone’s appeal goes
beyond simple novelty. According to Art and Visual
Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye by Rudolf
Arnheim, our visual judgement perceives an object by
relating to its environment. Hence, a near bezel-less
aesthetic would juxtapose the screen’s content, granting
the viewer an impression of a larger display size while
drawing them to what they are looking at.
For the longest time, a smartphone having a larger
screen usually meant an increase in phone size. The
magic of design manufacturing allows phone makers
to break the mold. Take, for example, the LG G6 – the
phone’s dimensions (148.9 x 71.9 x 7.9mm) contain its
5.7-inch screen, yet the similarly sized LG G5 (149.4 x
73.9 x 7.7 mm) packs a 5.3-inch display. This is good
news for folks who like chasing after larger displays, but
are hesitant about how large phones have become.
Increasing the display length on these phones would
grant them uncommon aspect ratios, which doesn’t play
nice with videos that conform to the more common 16:9
ratio. That said brands like Samsung have a workaround.
Their 18.5:9 Galaxy S8 and S8+ come with the option to
stretch, resize, or crop your streamed YouTube video to
ï t the entire display. While this isn’t a perfect solution,
it can help circumvent the need for letterboxing.
There’s also a slow-growing catalog for 18:9 content
out there. Movies like Jurassic Park (2015) and Netð ix
original series Stranger Things were shot in 2:1 aspect
ratio, which 18:9 effectively is, so your uncommon
display ratio won’t stay uncommon for long.
Such displays are also not without compromise.
The reduction of a bezel takes away some structural
integrity since the exposed glass is more vulnerable to
accidents. Battery drain is already a problem for existing
phone models, and having more real estate to render
would shorten precious up time on your smaller devices.
Whether near bezel-less smartphones are right way
forward is something only time can tell.PICTURES
LG, SAMSUNG, XIAOMI