LG's 0.7mm Smartphone Bezel Is World's Narrowest

SmartAboutThings (1951032) writes "LG Display has announced that it has developed a 5.3-inch Full HD LCD panel for smartphones with the world's narrowest bezel at 0.7mm. It's even thinner than a credit card, making the screen give you the impression that it 'overflows.' The company calls the construction Neo Edge technology; it uses an adhesive instead of double-sided tape to attach and seal the panel's circuit board and backlight unit.

Comments

Drop test?

[CaptainStumpy]

Being the world's thinnest ain't worth crap if it shatters when the wind blows. How strong is this .7mm bezel?

Re:Drop test?

[stephanruby]

Being the world's thinnest ain't worth crap if it shatters when the wind blows. How strong is this .7mm bezel?

As a proud owner of an LG G2 (their last flagship device before the G3), I can attest that the G2 feels like a precious jewel and is super fragile. I dropped it only once (before getting a cover for it, and that made a small chip to the glass bezel). And I actually know a few people with G2s and all those people I know have gotten covers for their G2s for the same reason I did, because the device chipped so easily.

Compare that to the Sony Experia Z Ultra, I let my nephews play with that one, and it must have been dropped 30 times without even as much as a scratch on it (which is really surprising, that device looks super fragile too).

That being said, the last time I had to replace a screen digitizer on an LG, a model before the G2, it cost me $30 to buy a replacement digitizer and change the digitizer myself (following a detailed youtube video). Try to do the same on a Samsung Note, and the replacement digitizer will cost you more than $150 because it uses Wacom technology. Or try to do the same with an iPhone, and I suspect that it will cost a lot as well since most people I know who have iPhones with broken screens don't bother to replace the screen at all (if they don't have the extra insurance to begin with).

Re: Drop test?

[Anonymous Coward]

LG Nexus 5 owner here. Thin edges. Smashed within a month.

Re:Drop test?

[dgatwood]

Or try to do the same with an iPhone, and I suspect that it will cost a lot as well since most people I know who have iPhones with broken screens don't bother to replace the screen at all (if they don't have the extra insurance to begin with).

$109 or $129, depending on model, if you don't have AppleCare+, at last check. So still less than repairs for your Samsung Note. That's if you have Apple do it, of course; I have no idea what third-party shops are charging these days.

Re:Drop test?

[phoenix_rizzen]

What are you dropping it on and from how high?

My G2 has been without a cover for 10 months now. Dropped several times on laminate floor, carpet, linoleum, and carport cement (2-4' drops). Been kicked across the floor and the driveway. And went tumbling down the stairs twice so far. Only permanent damage is two small divots on the very edge of the bezels ( in the extremely thin silver band just outside of the glass screen).

This has been one of the sturdiest phones I've had, and the first touchscreen phone I've kept out of a case. The only one stronger was my first cell phone, a fortified Panasonic TX-220.

Re: Drop test?

[Anonymous Coward]

LG Nexus 5 owner here. Thin edges. 11 months old and not a single scratch or dent on it.

Isn't anecdotal evidence the best?

Re: Drop test?

[ArcadeMan]

Nintendo DSi owner here. Dropped the damn thing over 100 times. Still working.

Re:Drop test?

[EnglishDude]

They all are the same, break easily. I had a Samsung Galaxy S3 that was always in an Otterbox case for 2 years, I dropped it more times than I'd care, straight on concrete after a 2 metre fall- no problem even when I demonstrated, throwing it straight on the floor. For one day and only one day before I was due to put it on eBay after getting my G2, I had it out of the case, and it slipped out of my pocket, falling 30 cm straight on concrete and it had 2 cracks across the corner, enough to render it worthless for sale. When this happened, I put my G2 back in its box until I got an armour case for it. I did plan to buy a replacement cover but I could never find one that I knew was truly genuine so ended up giving it away to someone in my family.

You can get a phone with either a scratchproof display, or a crackproof display, but not both - at the moment. My Nokias in the past all were tough and never needed cases, but the glass/plastic screen scratched like hell. My dad had a Nokia that eventually got full of sawdust behind its display. Still worked great but was blurry as hell.

Re:Drop test?

[perryizgr8]

Well the Samsungs do have a much more advanced screen than iPhones, so it is reasonable that it would be costlier. What is not so reasonable is that if you crack the glass on your SGS4 (touchscreen and display working perfectly), they will replace the entire thing (digitizer, display and glass) because the whole thing is fused together. And they charge you full, too.

Re:Drop test?

[stephanruby]

What are you dropping it on and from how high?

My G2 has been without a cover for 10 months now. Dropped several times on laminate floor, carpet, linoleum, and carport cement (2-4' drops). Been kicked across the floor and the driveway. And went tumbling down the stairs twice so far. Only permanent damage is two small divots on the very edge of the bezels ( in the extremely thin silver band just outside of the glass screen).

The two small divots on the very edge of the bezels is what I'm talking about. Like I said, the drop of mine "made a small chip to the glass bezel". It didn't affect the screen itself. I only thought it was worth mentioning, because now they're making the bezel even thinner. And putting a cover on it is kind of a bummer, because I really love the feel of the phone without the cover.

Despite what I said, it's a phone I really love. A couple more things about the phone:

The pull down menu looks horribly cluttered the first time you use it, but if you take the time to remove the things you don't need from it, it's actually very nice. The 13 MegaPixel camera + led flash should be a big plus, but the software of my Sony Experia Z Ultra without a flash and lower resolution takes better pictures in low light conditions than my G2 with a flash. And last but not least, the unorthodox placement of the power button and volume rocker is considered a negative by some reviewers, but now that I'm used to it, I wouldn't have it any other way, it feels the most natural usability-wise.

This has been one of the sturdiest phones I've had, and the first touchscreen phone I've kept out of a case. The only one stronger was my first cell phone, a fortified Panasonic TX-220.

Let's agree to disagree then.

Re:Drop test?

[drew870mitchell]

FWIW as another proud owner of a G2 I have not found it particularly fragile. Sure, it feels much more fragile than other phones because they threw a plastic shell on it, but it has stood up to time just as well as my other phone. I got a wallet-case for it, and damn Verizon for getting their own SKU that is apparently ~1mm wider, the phone popped out of the case onto a concrete floor from about six feet up. Nary a scratch.

All that said, part of the reason I got the G2 was its then-best flagship battery life, so I was bummed that the G3 didn't build upon that (not that I ever go less than two years between upgrades anyway). I appreciate LG's obsessive drive towards a nanometer-bezel 4K screen but I would much prefer days and days of battery life instead.

Unintentional touch events

[Scottingham]

Surely holding it with one hand will cause your palm to touch the edges of the screen. Are they touch dead zones? Are they able to be disabled? The S3 without a case had this problem ...or maybe I just have huge hand.s (ladies ;-))

Re:Unintentional touch events

[rrohbeck]

Yeah that's pretty useless for a phone. But I'd looove this tech in the next set of large monitors for my multimonitor setup.

Re:Unintentional touch events

[alvinrod]

I was wondering the same as well. You would think that it could probably sense a lot of touch events occurring near the edge and treat that as a non-touch. It seems like the kind of problem that could be solved even with a relatively naive algorithm. If they aren't even considering it as a problem there's obviously something wrong with their design team.

Reddit Buzz

[Greyfox]

Is it generating any buzz over at r/bezels?

Narrowest *LCD* bezel

[timeOday]

OLED doesn't particularly need a bezel, by design. Here is a 55" TV with a 1mm bezel.

Re:Narrowest *LCD* bezel

[Skylinux]

Great but the image stops way short of the bezel. What good is a 1mm bezel if the image stops 5mm before it in every direction?

Edge press madness

[Anonymous Coward]

My old LG phone extends far enough to the edge of the display as it is... still occasionally get spaz hits on the digitizer from "holding" .. Giving my phone to anyone else to handle usually results in "sorry" or "what's going on" ...

It isn't that this is in itself is bad it is only when combined with "ultra thin" that you end up with problems. Personally pushing the display out is good but ultra thin sucks.

Commodity screens

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely we can now eliminate the bezel on one side, by bending the electronics, so we can stick cheap small screens together to make big screens ?

Usability Nightmare

[bill_mcgonigle]

News for LG - some people, nay - lots of people - put their so-beautiful-we-can-hardly-stand-it LG phones in cases.

I run a GS4 for a daily driver, and it has as thin, but not micro-thin bezel. If I'm selecting some text that goes to the edge of the screen, I still have to pull back the silicone "layer 1" the wraps just around the edge.

This is not a good feature.

Maybe the new LG is shatter proof and waterproof, though, in which case I withdraw my criticism. I would never be so cynical as to suggest that making cases impossible to use would improve profits through increased unit accidental destruction.

Re:Usability Nightmare

[MattskEE]

Cynical much? One phone does not need to be all things to all people in order to be successful. Not all of us need cases on our smartphones: in my 4.5 years of smartphone usage and two smartphones I have yet to damage my uncased phones in any way.

Since you need a case on your smartphone you should buy a different one, others of us enjoy the beautiful design of a tiny bezel. But I hope to keep my phone at least another 1-2 years so I'm not in the market currently.

What about unintentional activation?

[Kleebner]

Great, now I will accidentally touch the screen far more often when I am only trying to hold my phone.

Narrow Bezel vs. Thin

[TechyImmigrant]

Narrow bezels are nice.
Thin cases are very, very poor tradeoff.

Twice as thin == 1/3 of the potential battery volume, bendgate and a less robust design.
I'd love my Nexus 5 to be a couple of mm thicker with the extra volume filled with battery. I expect there are some iphone6 owners in the same spot.

adhesive, tape?

[ouachiski]

So it could use tape as apposed to tape?

Re:adhesive, tape?

[Firethorn]

adhesive means glue, tape is a flexible flat surface, normally with an adhesive attached to it. ;)

So they could be going from double sided tape to a sprayed on glue layer.

Re:Fingers

[davester666]

one fewer if you are Jose Canseco

Re: But does it protect from Eboli?

[ZorglubZ]

What's that? The feared E. Coli bacterium crossed with the Ebola virus?

Am I the only one who doesn't care?

[Ihlosi]

Am I the only one who doesn't care about ever-thinner cellphones/smartphones? They're just getting harder to hold and use, and easier to break.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't care?

[narcc]

Judging from the comments above? Nope.

Personally? I'll take easy-to-hold, larger batter, or no-accidental-touches over thinness any day.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't care?

[ArcadeMan]

I find the thickness of my old iPhone 3GS to be just perfect, especially with the curved plastic back. Our hands aren't designed to hold rectangles with sharp edges.

Can some doctor please...

[Torp]

... treat the CEOs of all mobile phone makers until they drop this stupid obsession with thinness and work on giving us decent battery life?

Re:Can some doctor please...

[ArcadeMan]

This is just a job for the marketing department. Instead of pushing for thin phones vs their competitors, they should be pushing for battery life. Then the competitors will also need to push for battery life. Imagine an iPhone 6+ with the thickness and the curved back of an old iPhone 3GS. The battery life would probably be at least twice of what it is now.

This is great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonderful. But if you want to really show off your thin bezels, then let's do a phone with a 5.7" screen so you can get Samsung to buy in with the Note 5 and start doing small bezels.
Drives me nuts that my bad eyes have to get the biggest phone possible. Sharp can make a small phone.

oh, great!

[Anonymous Coward]

How you can insure that you never not covered a part of your screen with your fingers. That your always multitouching, all the time!

Re:Phone Case?

[greenfruitsalad]

how will this work with fingers? i had a phone with narrow bezel (galaxy s4) and could not use it. it always assumed i was tapping the sides of screen with my palm, thumb, etc.. there was just no non-interfering way of holding it securely. when i got a case for it, the opposite happened - i could not tap on anything close to the edge. i got rid of it.

Re:Phone Case?

[ArcadeMan]

Phones are still in their "just because we can do it doesn't mean we should" phase.

Thinnest vs battery life, touch-screen displays that to up to the edge vs usability, etc.

Re: But does it protect from Eboli?

[ganjadude]

or e-machines

Re:Phone Case?

[tompaulco]

I'm sure they will come up with a way to attach a case to it. After all, it doesn't matter how slim the phone is, the case is pretty much a given necessity which nicely brings the total size back to awkward and clunky.

Re:Fold to unlock?

[tompaulco]

I have noticed that all of the latest features of Apple are ones that have existed on other device for 6 months or more. I'm starting to wonder if I had been paying more attention back in the 1980s if the claims of copying off of Apples OS would turn out to be just as bogus.

Re:Phone Case?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Also, thin designs can't possibly help the camera quality. (And that seems to be a versatile tool these days.)

Can only display peppers

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

It's limited to displaying peppers though. If you like viewing your peppers with hardly any bezel, then this is your lucky day!

Important to Maketing People

[BrendaEM]

As for me, I need some way to hold on to my cellphone.
I would like this better in a laptop.