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Comment by handrous | Hacker News Reader

Whoa, what's with the huge bezel? My only Mini is a 1st-gen, but that has a tiny bezel on either side, with somewhat larger ones top-and-bottom, and I really like the resulting overall size & proportions. Did the top and bottom bezels shrink a ton so it just looks like the whole thing's bigger all around because they all match now, or did they widen the sides? Looking at the dimensions on WP it looks like the height is what got bigger, with the width staying the same, which is confusing—did they change the screen proportions, too? I thought the old size & look was just about perfect, like a trade paperback.

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I think it's so that you can hold the iPad comfortably without accidentally activating something on the screen.

Sure, but they don't do that with their phones, and like hell I'm carrying this thing around without a case (which is also why they don't bother to make their iPhones so they're easy to use caseless, or make them so the backs are flat without a case—everyone uses a case unless they're trying to signal "I'm rich enough that if I drop this and the screen shatters I'll just shrug and buy another immediately, and if it happens again next week, same story"). That was a problem with my Mini when I first took it out of the box, but it was in a case soon after and that stopped being a problem—and I would buy this as an explanation, if they hadn't kept the original design for the first 3 generations, and if they seemed to care about that for other devices—my 4th gen iPad Pro's like that, too, so it's hard to use in-hand without a case because the bezel's tiny—but of course I'm going to have a case on it, so it hardly matters.

[EDIT] in fact, with a case, this thing's gonna look downright fat. Maybe they just couldn't fit as much battery as they needed for these newer chips & screens, in the old size?

You can hold the phone with one hand, with fingers on one side and thumb on the other.

You're going to need to be able to grip an edge of the iPad—even the mini—so it needs a little more space for that.

Yes, but they don't do that on other models of iPad, not just the phone, and again, most people put these things straight in cases, so they've usually (and correctly, despite complaints on Web forums) designed their devices so they won't be too bulky once a case is added, past the early generations when they kinda needed the bezel for space reasons (though, again, even the now-ancient first-gen mini barely had side bezels)

They look pretty much like the bezels on all the other iPads with no home button, just not scaled down to the form factor of the iPad mini.

Which makes sense if the purpose of the bezel is to provide a gripping surface.

A phone fits easily in the palm of one hand whereas a tablet usually requires a stronger grip since it’s much larger than a phone. Just take a look at their product page and you’ll see a model holding the iPad mini with one hand and their thumb already touches part of the screen. If the bezels were thinner it would cause more erroneous inputs. So why engineer thinner bezels when it’s not practical to have them in such a device.

Sure. Make it all screen and blank on the pixels on the edges. Then when you want the full screen they light up.

Sorry, that makes too much sense to ever be implemented correctly.

Source: Galaxy S7 Edge user.

The side bezels on the previous gen were too small IMHO. I ended up putting mine in a case that added a grip on the left hand side. While the device has decent palm rejection, it's never perfect and I find it disconcerting when the only way to hold it from an edge is to cover a portion of the screen. I think it makes sense to make the side bezels slightly larger, though I agree that the proportions of the device are slightly less appealing as a result.

Yes, the screen aspect ratio changed from 2048 x 1536 (4:3) to 2266 x 1488 (roughly 3:2), same DPI. The outer width on the short side has remained exactly the same (134.8 mm). So they traded off 48 pixels for the wider bezel along the long side, while reducing the bezel (and adding 218 pixels) along the short side. The outer long side is reduced by 7.8 mm.

I'd love to have 2cm extra bezel on one side so as it hold it better. Cover it with grippy texture (similar to Thinkpads) on the flange, thinner than the rest of the device (step-down from the edge of the display) and that would be a great device ergonomically. The grip flange can be thin and strong, may be 2mm think.

I wouldn't be opposed to iDevices being usable without cases, but they'd need to make them a hell of a lot tougher, then. If we've got to have a case anyway because the devices are too fragile, I prefer the strategy they usually use of minimizing device size and relying on the case to provide the in-hand ergonomics (texture, bulk, bezels, handles, integrated stands, those bump-out grip thingies—you choose which of those you want when you buy the case)

I would agree about the new bezel —- it’s hard to tell if it’s just my eyes and the perspective in this image, but it really looks like there’s a new bezel that’s 2/3 the size of the old top/bottom bezel, and at least twice as thick as the old size bezel. Maybe 3 times the size.

That was what struck me first as well. Reminds me of one of those kids edition tablets.

It's incredible to me how much people care about bezels. I'm not objecting, more marveling!

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