I Got Hands-On With Tecno's Bezel-Less Concept Phone, And It's Not The Future We Were Promised

Cast your mind back to around 2018, when every other week brought a new iPhone concept render showing the device that was one continuous pane of glass with no borders anywhere. Apple's Jony Ive even said he wanted an iPhone to "appear like a single sheet of glass," suggesting he was apparently not a fan of iPhone designs at that point. The concept artists took it from there. Fast-forward to IFA 2026 in Berlin, where Chinese smartphone maker Tecno is showing a bezel-less concept phone. To be sure, Tecno's phone isn't quite what Ive may have been describing, but it's closer than anything I've picked up before.

Held dead on, Tecno's phone has no bezels, as the company says. Content runs all the way out to the edge of the glass on all four sides, with only a hole-punch selfie camera breaking the all-screen look. But if you tilt your head, and gaze at the edges of the display from an angle, the illusion falls apart.

Tecno's concept phone isn't just for show, like it's under glass at a museum. This concept phone is a fully working Android device, with a 6.7-inch flat display with a 144Hz refresh rate. The device appears to be a version of the Tecno Canom Slim, running a Dimensity 7300e chipset — that's probably because this device is still a concept.

During my time with the concept device, I watched YouTube videos, viewed photos I'd taken in the gallery, and used the phone as I usually would. True to the promise, media fills the panel from corner to corner. A photo with no black frame around it looks noticeably different compared to the same photo on any phone you can buy. Pinch to zoom into videos, and the phone really comes into its own as the image fills the screen. During day-to-day scrolling, you don't really notice the lack of bezels. But when I switched back to my iPhone 17 Pro Max — a device with fairly slim bezels already — I noticed they were back. That's my favorite kind of smartphone experience, when a feature is so good that you really notice when it isn't there.

The rest of this concept phone's hardware is fairly ordinary. It isn't slim, but it's not a brick either, and the weight is fairly normal. The back is white plastic, which sounds cheap but doesn't feel that way, partly because Tecno has embedded a 3D lenticular hologram of a butterfly that animates as you move the phone. It's the same trick as the holographic bookmarks you might have had as a kid. I've never seen this on a phone before, and it's a nice touch. Although, I can't help but think Tecno's decision to add this might tell you something about its confidence for the headline bezel-less feature.

The OLED panel still has an inactive edge that Tecno just hid under the device's frame. The way it works is with two layers of cover glass. The top layer runs out to the edge of the frame, while the lower glass layer and the panel itself both continue underneath it. To do this, Tecno had to build the phone backwards, mounting the display from the rear instead of the front and using a custom adhesive that sits between the frame and the lower piece of glass. Tecno describes the approach as a mix of internal stacking changes, structural reengineering, and new screen packaging.

Standing next to someone holding the phone, you'd never spot the hidden bezel until you tilt it off-axis and look carefully. There, you'll find the bezel tucked beneath the frame, and much more visible. Reading something at the very bottom of the screen is probably the one everyday position where it might just catch your eye.

The rails, however, are a bigger issue. They sit high above the glass and catch your thumb constantly. It's a stark contrast from the subtle elegance of the bezel-less display; while you may not notice the lack of bezels, you'll definitely notice the rails. They don't give you anything back in way of grip assistance, and they're majorly in the way when you swipe in from the side of the display. However, I never triggered a stray input or had a touch not picked up at the very edge of the display, which is where you'd assume this device would run into problems.

For now, Tecno's bezel-less phone remains a concept device. The company declined to comment on whether this device would make it to the market. The line I kept getting was that this is a concept device for now. That is also the language the company used when showing off its concept for a modular phone that reminded us of a failed LG 2016 experiment. That product, shown at MWC 2026, which still hasn't made its way to market either.

In daily use, the edge-to-edge screen is just something you look at. Video is the best use case for it, especially when zooming into a YouTube video to push past the letterbox. On a phone with a display this size, it is a noticeable increase in display area. But none of that makes a bezel-less phone something I'd buy on its own merits, although Tecno hasn't given anybody the chance regardless.

Where I see bezel-less display tech being more useful is on a slim phone such as the iPhone Air or the Galaxy S25 Edge, which are already focused on being slim and providing a premium experience when held in the hand. Both devices are also real and shipping today. Tecno clearly has the same idea, engineering this concept out of its slim device. Although, while Tecno has the display part working, the 2018 concept renders never had rails that caught your thumb. If bezel-less phones are going to go mainstream, I think we've got a little bit of work to do still.