How much of your phone is actually screen?

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Red Storm

Red Storm

Lifer
Oct 2, 2005
14,233
234
106
There are many reasons why I have a G2 and had a Note 3, and this is one of them. Big bezels are ugly!

screen-infographic.png
 
D

dawheat

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2000
3,132
93
91
Hmm for some reason I would have expected the Moto X to be higher in the list - it seems to be quite compact for the screen size.

I'm with you as well regarding bezels - I don't think we're at the point yet where they're too small (as a current Note 3 user). It's one of the reasons I couldn't get onboard with the HTC One and Xperia Z1.
 
notposting

notposting

Diamond Member
Jul 22, 2005
3,498
33
91
Interesting that the Lumia 1520/1320 rank so high with capacitive buttons. Looks like WP8.1 will fully support on screen buttons, will make for some interesting new hardware there.
 
Yuriman

Yuriman

Diamond Member
Jun 25, 2004
5,530
141
106
I assume the chart includes onscreen buttons as part of screen size, which is probably fair as some apps will indeed claim those pixels back for use.

notposting said:
Interesting that the Lumia 1520/1320 rank so high with capacitive buttons. Looks like WP8.1 will fully support on screen buttons, will make for some interesting new hardware there.
Click to expand...

True of the Note 3 & S4 too though. Capacitive buttons don't need to grow with device/screen size, so keeping them constant while growing the phone will result in them taking up relatively less of the device face.
 
R

Rdmkr

Senior member
Aug 2, 2013
272
0
0
Hmm for some reason I would have expected the Moto X to be higher in the list - it seems to be quite compact for the screen size.
Click to expand...

it's pretty much only significantly beaten by the G2 and Note 3. I'd speculate it's harder to give small phones a small bezel percentage, hence why the Moto X looks so impressive.

IMO for non-rooted phones the Note 3 is the real winner here, because its screen is not cluttered by a navigation bar. I'm in favor of on-screen buttons when they shrink bezels by removing the need for capacitive or physical ones, but samsung gets impressively far without needing to resort to that.

For rooted phones they're not a big issue, since you can shrink them down to 30 pixels or auto-hide them. It's really time they start offering these as standard features in smartphone software.
 
S

Suspicious-Teach8788

Lifer
Feb 19, 2001
20,155
23
81
In general this metric seems like it should favor large phones. Bezels don't scale proportionally. Even if Apple did minimize bezels more, they'd still be at a disadvantage.

At the same time I think that phones w/o capacitive keys should account for a virtual bezel created by the soft keys. Before you mention immersive mode, I'd like to say that it doesn't apply in every case.
 
Red Storm

Red Storm

Lifer
Oct 2, 2005
14,233
234
106
DLeRium said:
At the same time I think that phones w/o capacitive keys should account for a virtual bezel created by the soft keys. Before you mention immersive mode, I'd like to say that it doesn't apply in every case.
Click to expand...

It can if you want. My G2 has hidden nav buttons that only appear when I swipe up. It took a quick root to get that functionality, but the option is there and it doesn't require flashing a custom ROM thankfully.

As for the smaller phones being at a disadvantage... well, I guess that's just one of the disadvantages to using a smaller phone. Any time I try to use my wife's smaller phone I am constantly reminded of the diminutive size and how cramped and annoying it is to use compared to my G2.
 
Zaap

Zaap

Diamond Member
Jun 12, 2008
7,162
424
126
DLeRium said:
In general this metric seems like it should favor large phones. Bezels don't scale proportionally. Even if Apple did minimize bezels more, they'd still be at a disadvantage.
Click to expand...
Possibly, but I notice by that chart that the original Galaxy Note is in about the same category as phones far smaller than it.

Even the Note 2 is surprisingly low-ranked compared to its size.

Also the MotoX, Nexus 5 and GS4 score very high without being phablets.

IMO with Apple, the top and bottom bezels are way behind the times, even for the size of their screens.

Large bezels to me are not only ugly- they're largely useless. It's just carrying around that much more phone that isn't screen.
 
cronos

cronos

Diamond Member
Nov 7, 2001
9,380
26
101
Only 64.8% and that's primarily because of the awesome stereo speakers (that I ended up never use anyway). Oh well, it's still pretty :D
 
Red Storm

Red Storm

Lifer
Oct 2, 2005
14,233
234
106
cronos said:
Only 64.8% and that's primarily because of the awesome stereo speakers (that I ended up never use anyway). Oh well, it's still pretty :D
Click to expand...

Really all they need to do is have the two front speakers and an edge to edge display in between. Would be the best looking phone ever. The fat bezels that sat between the speakers and screen kinda ruined the One's look for me.
 
S

Suspicious-Teach8788

Lifer
Feb 19, 2001
20,155
23
81
Zaap said:
Possibly, but I notice by that chart that the original Galaxy Note is in about the same category as phones far smaller than it.

Even the Note 2 is surprisingly low-ranked compared to its size.

Also the MotoX, Nexus 5 and GS4 score very high without being phablets.

IMO with Apple, the top and bottom bezels are way behind the times, even for the size of their screens.

Large bezels to me are not only ugly- they're largely useless. It's just carrying around that much more phone that isn't screen.
Click to expand...
There are exceptions sure, but just thinking about it already makes sense. Larger phones don't necessarily result in a scaled bezel. Even if the iPhone had the same bezels as a Moto X, it would lose because this metric favors larger phones.

Furthermore, if you add on the virtual bezel created by soft keys on the GNex, it plummets 7.5% to 59.5%. That phone was ridiculous considering Google advertised it as having small bezels during the keynote.
 
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Zaap

Zaap

Diamond Member
Jun 12, 2008
7,162
424
126
However you want to look at it.

Fact is, with every new model, Samsung has improved the Galaxy S line screen/bezel ratio to move up an entire row on the chart. The size of the phones hasn't drastically changed, in fact, I think they might even have managed to increase the screen size on the S4 while making the phone slightly smaller. (They definitely did that with some dimensions from Note 2 to Note 3.

Apple could do much better also, they just don't ever have to.
 
Zaap

Zaap

Diamond Member
Jun 12, 2008
7,162
424
126
kaerflog said:
Except Sony's design lately are mostly big fat bezels.
Click to expand...

Fair enough. I should rephrase: I like ONE of Sony's designs I've seen lately, namely the Xperia ZL. Otherwise I'm not really up on anything Sony makes, and a safe bet I'll never own a Sony phone.
 
D

Dari

Lifer
Oct 25, 2002
17,133
38
91
Zaap said:
However you want to look at it.

Fact is, with every new model, Samsung has improved the Galaxy S line screen/bezel ratio to move up an entire row on the chart. The size of the phones hasn't drastically changed, in fact, I think they might even have managed to increase the screen size on the S4 while making the phone slightly smaller. (They definitely did that with some dimensions from Note 2 to Note 3.

Apple could do much better also, they just don't ever have to.
Click to expand...

Yeah, they've managed to improve that ratio while slowing the phone down with so much bloat.

Do. Not. Want.
 
Zaap

Zaap

Diamond Member
Jun 12, 2008
7,162
424
126
Dari said:
Yeah, they've managed to improve that ratio while slowing the phone down with so much bloat.

Do. Not. Want.
Click to expand...

Riiiight, because we all buy that a Galaxy S is faster than an S2 is faster than an S3 is faster than an S4.
 
poofyhairguy

poofyhairguy

Lifer
Nov 20, 2005
14,612
318
126
Dari said:
Yeah, they've managed to improve that ratio while slowing the phone down with so much bloat.

Do. Not. Want.
Click to expand...

My GPe-romed S4 is bloatless. This is about hardware not software. Software can be changed, a bezel cannot.
 
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