A little-known smartphone brand is about to make a splash with a particular spec on its next major release, and it may start a new trend elsewhere in the market. We’ve already seen (and already got a bit bored with) the race to make the slimmest phone in the world, but what about the thinnest screen bezel in the world?
This is how Meizu intends to draw attention to the Meizu 22, which it’s promising will have a mere 1.2mm thick symmetrical edge around the screen.
Meizu who?
Meizu will be a name familiar to those with long memories, as it released a wide variety of Android smartphones between 2011 and 2020, before quietly stopping its efforts soon after. Later, the brand was purchased by Chinese electric car brand Geely, and returned to smartphones in 2023.
The Meizu 22 has been teased on Meizu’s official Weibo page, where it has already revealed the 1.2mm bezel measurement, but has not shown it off visually just yet. An image showing someone holding a normal-looking phone with the screen turned off is all that accompanies Meizu’s claim for now.
At an event held earlier in the year, Meizu teased the phone as a small-screen flagship with a width of 71mm, putting the teaser image into a little more context. At first glance this isn’t the headline number Meizu thinks it is, as it puts it squarely in-between the Samsung Galaxy S25’s 70.5mm width, and the one-hand wonder that was the Asus Zenfone 9, which measured 68.1mm wide. However, we do not know what screen size the Meizu 22 will have, and this is where the slim bezel may come into play.
Slimmer phones, slimmer bezels
Meizu says the screen technology used to make such a slim bezel is hard to perfect, leading to a low yield of usable panels, which has put manufacturers off in the past. Its in-house research and development team has come up with a solution to minimize the manufacturing issues.
The bezel will also apparently be white rather than black, minimizing the visual impact further. It’s uncertain which processor the Meizu 22 will use, with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite, Snapdragon 8S Gen 4, and the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 all linked to it in rumors.
What’s more, Meizu apparently won’t be satisfied with a thin bezel. It will follow the Meizu 22 up with a Meizu 22 Air, according to industry news source Digital Chat Station. The Meizu 22 Air will be a “slimmer, large screen model,” likely challenging the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge and the rumored Apple iPhone 17 Air.
Another race to the bottom
What does all this mean? It’s possible we’re seeing the start of a new trend. The rumored iPhone 17 Air almost certainly pushed Samsung to prioritize the Galaxy S25 Edge for mid-2025, and brands like Tecno with the Spark Slim quickly jumped on the trend for thin smartphones too. Honor, Oppo, and Samsung have all battled against each other for the title of world’s thinnest big-screen foldable this year.
While Meizu does not have the same ability to capture global headlines as Samsung, Honor, and Apple, it seems unlikely that other brands will let it claim “world’s thinnest screen bezel” without a challenge. Thin bezels may not have the same instant, obvious benefit as a thin phone chassis, but we should not forget how there’s something very cool about the front of a phone being “all screen.” Just look back at phones like the Essential PH-1 and the LG G6 for evidence, along with Samsung’s curved Infinity Display on the Galaxy S9 and Note 9. Just as phone makers have chased thinner cases for years, they’ve also worked to make smaller bezels around big screens for years too.
Previous all-screen efforts always had a compromise or two, such as a big lower bezel or a curved panel, but the Meizu 22 sounds like it will avoid both these aspects, all without using a black border too. The Meizu 22 is expected to be announced during the summer in China. Will it be the first in a new race to claim the “slimmest bezel” crown? Perhaps, and we’re also interested to see which enterprising brand will be the first to claim both this and the “world’s thinnest phone” title, all with the same device.
