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Comment by asafira | Hacker News Reader

I'm honestly surprised whenever I hear people complain about bezels. Does this really annoy people that much?

Seriously.. This obsession with thinner, bezel-less flimsy phones that look good only until the first time you drop it at a height greater than 2cms; Its cancer, causing manufacturers to make phones that are objectively worse from the viewpoint of ergonomics (these phones are very slippery and easy to drop), reliability and battery life.

I would pick a sturdy rugged phone over these cinderella phones any day of the week.

small bezels are important to people because it essentially means a bigger screen inside the same dimensions. I have an iPhone 7 Plus because of the bigger screen, but i feel the overall footprint is ridiculously large for the size of the screen. The iPhone X has the perfect size while the display is still the same or even slightly bigger.

Fair enough. Especially In the case of the iPhone there seems to have been a lot of 'wasted' vertical space that could have otherwise been used for the display (albeit requiring a different aspect ratio). But my point still remains - Is the 1-2mm of extra screen space afforded by an edge-to-edge display really worth it? For me at least the answer is no.

I've never had a phone that I've felt confident using without a case, bezel-less or otherwise. I personally like bezel-less phones because I get more screen space for a phone that's just as durable (in a case).

Whereas I've never used a phone case, feeling that it would negate the point of slim phones. I'm pretty confident with not dropping them though, as that had not yet happened since the dawn of smartphones. Nexus 4 with its glass back would slide off slippery surfaces by itself though, but gladly never broke.

You nailed it.

Clumsy cases absolutely destroy the elegance of these beautiful devices.

I'm not as confident about dropping them though.

However the Samsung Galaxy A3 I use has proved to be very durable.

Among casual drops, it has sustained multiple drops to stone floors from considerable heights and being violently thrown across the room (not by me).

The aluminium casing has some small dents and the Corning Gorilla Glass 4 screen has a few small scratches. Otherwise it's still in excellent condition.

Just for context: nearly 80% of US smartphone users use a case: https://www.statista.com/statistics/368627/us-protective-cas...

Don't these weird curved Samsung screens make the cases less useful?

Depends on the case I guess. I got a mid-sized case from Otterbox, which has slightly raised lips at the top and bottom of the case so it's quite unlikely that the screen hits the floor first.

Also, at least with the S8 series, the curvature is a lot less aggressive than Samsung's earlier curved screen phones (S7 edge series).

I upgraded a few weeks ago from a Nexus 5X to a Galaxy S7 (non-Edge). The two things I miss from the 5X are the fingerprint scanner location (The iPhone-style 'home' button / scanner combo on the S7 is a bit more fiddly, although the scanner is quicker) and the bezel at the side. It's far too easy to get false touch inputs along the edge of the screen, turning a click into a pinch zoom etc. Bezels aren't necessarily bad on a multitouch screen.

That's funny, I have the exact same complaints about bezel and unwanted edge touch inputs after moving from HTC Incredible S to Nexus 5X a month or two ago. :) I guess it all goes continually downhill, and has been for a while.

Yeah, I did get it occasionally with the 5X too, but it's definitely easier to accidentally press the base of your thumb onto the edge of the screen on the X7. All in the name of it looking nicer in the display window, I guess.

Having an S8, I'm actually considering moving away from Samsung and getting a phone that actually still has a bit of a bezel on the sides - assuming I can find another phone that has what I care about (SoC, RAM, storage, at least IP67, and wireless charging). I have a major problem with the S8 screwing up because the thumb/palm touching the side of the screen when I'm holding it.

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