Sony is exploring bezel-less designs for future Xperia smartphones

Sony has said that it's looking into possible bezel-less designs for future smartphones, but it's made no guarantee that they'll arrive anytime soon.

The information comes from a Sony-published interview on its own website, where Sony Mobile's Head of Product Planning, Ichino, explains why the firm is yet to adopt the almost all-screen design of many of its rivals.

Roughly translated, Ichino says "We recognize the trend of narrowing the bezel area and making the display larger screen. 

"However, since we place great importance on experience value and ease of holding, we are working on raising the occupancy rate of the front of the main body while keeping them."

Ichino notes that on Sony's more recent handsets - such as the Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact - the bezels above and below the display have been reduced versus their predecessors, but they still do not have the same striking design as the notch-laden competition - handsets such as the iPhone X, OnePlus 6, Huawei P20 Pro and LG G7 ThinQ.

Function vs features

Ichino goes on to explain why Sony hasn't rushed to reduce the bezels even further, and adopt the now-popular display notch at the top of the screen.

"Camera image quality, sound quality, antenna sensitivity, etc may be sacrificed."

Ichino, Head of Product Planning

"How far it increases screen occupancy will be a trade-off with other functions, but we emphasize the total experience value and balance it. If you interfere with the area required for cameras, speakers, antennas, etc - as a result of expanding the display area - camera image quality, sound quality, antenna sensitivity, etc may be sacrificed. 

"Based on the premise of realizing the total user experience that we want to offer, the balance of the screen sizes considered as optimal at this time will be the shape of this time."

It appears Sony is aware of the growing trend towards smaller bezels though, and Ichino offers hope to those wanting to see the firm offer more screen and less bezel on future devices.

"Of course, I will continue to improve the balance further while keeping the experience by further design improvement and adoption of new technology."

Via PhoneArena

John McCann
Global Managing Editor

John joined TechRadar over a decade ago as Staff Writer for Phones, and over the years has built up a vast knowledge of the tech industry. He's interviewed CEOs from some of the world's biggest tech firms, visited their HQs and has appeared on live TV and radio, including Sky News, BBC News, BBC World News, Al Jazeera, LBC and BBC Radio 4. Originally specializing in phones, tablets and wearables, John is now TechRadar's resident automotive expert, reviewing the latest and greatest EVs and PHEVs on the market. John also looks after the day-to-day running of the site.