A guide to bezels, the hotly-contested smartphone feature that's dividing designers

Hollis Johnson

In the world of smartphones, bezels may be among the most hotly contested design features.

If you've followed any of the coverage of the latest devices, most notably Apple's new iPhone X, you likely have heard people talking about bezels. But you may not have known what they were or why they're important.

Here's a rundown on what bezels are and what all the debate is about:

What is a bezel, and why is it such a big deal?

Bezels are the borders between a screen and a phone's frame. Many of the latest smartphones have ultranarrow bezels, ones that almost seem to have disappeared.

Take a look at these different iPhone models. Note that the newest one — the iPhone X, which is in the middle — has the slimmest bezels of the three.

By narrowing the borders around a screen, manufacturers can devote more of the phone's front to its display, allowing them to offer a bigger screen in a smaller phone. The iPhone X, for example, has a larger screen that the iPhone 8 Plus, despite being a significantly smaller device.

Samsung and Google kicked off the narrow bezel trend back in 2011.

The companies worked together to produce that year's Galaxy Nexus device, which featured narrow borders on the sides of its screen.

The device also was the first to feature virtual navigation buttons in place of physical ones, providing a glimpse of the future, where the size of phone screens wouldn't need to be constricted to allow room for buttons.

Many technology enthusiasts love the new, nearly bezel-free phones.

Take the reaction of The Verge's Dieter Bohn to the Essential Phone (above) as an example. That device features among the narrowest bezels of any smartphone on the market, and Bohn was a fan.

"Giant phones with big bezels feel really silly after using this phone," he wrote.