Screen bezels and UMPCs: why are they too wide?

Pocketables has a rant on people incessantly commenting on why UMPCs have such large bezels. It’s a very well-thought out rant and not the one you’re thinking about and touches on some very important points on the design and manufacturing process.

The short of it is that bezels provide some structural integrity and protection for the LCD. It’s also constrained by the size that’s standard and available in the market. Custom-made screens cost way more and will drive the final price sky high, way out of reach among regular consumers. They choose the screen size, and hence the bezel size, that’s most economical and most feasible for a certain device design.

This thinking also applies to netbooks, where manufacturers often order the same screen size as their competitors so that everyone’s purchase helps drive down the costs of the screen for everybody. As you know, the LCD is one of the most expensive parts of any mobile computer. And if you try and make the netbook as small as possible for a certain LCD size, you might get more cracked screen than you want to have.

Until they perfect frameless screens though, bezels are pretty much here to stay.

source Pocketables