TECNO says it has built the world’s first phone with a true 0mm bezel

TECNO has announced a concept phone with no visible bezel at all. The company calls it the Next-Gen Bezelless Concept Phone, and it claims a true 0mm display border, meaning the screen runs all the way to the edge of the frame with no black outline between them. The device will make its public debut at ShowStoppers during IFA 2026 in Berlin on September 3. Leaker Ice Universe first shared images of the phone on July 31.

The bezel is the black border between a phone’s active display and its frame. It exists because a screen needs space at its edges for driver circuitry and for the sealing layer that protects OLED material from moisture. Every “borderless” phone sold today still has one, usually around 1mm to 1.5mm. TECNO says it removed it entirely through internal stacking, structural re-engineering, and new screen packaging techniques. It has not explained those techniques in any detail, and it has not named the panel supplier.

The phone still has a hole-punch selfie camera. That is not a contradiction of the claim, because the camera cutout sits inside the display area rather than around it. A cutout would only count against the design if TECNO had promised an uninterrupted glass front, which it has not.

The claim lands on Samsung’s toes

The timing makes this bolder than a normal concept reveal. On July 15, Samsung Display opened its South Korean headquarters to journalists for the first time and showed what it described as its best result: a panel with a 0.4mm top border and 0.6mm sides. Samsung’s engineers presented the sealing requirement around OLED material as the practical floor on how thin a border can get. Sixteen days later, TECNO announced zero.

BOE and Visionox have also shown sub-1mm bezel prototypes at industry events, so the race is crowded, but nobody else has claimed zero.

There is a fair question of whether TECNO belongs in that race at all. The company, part of Transsion, built its business on affordable phones for markets the big brands ignored. Transsion held 51% of African smartphone shipments in Q2 2025 according to Canalys, and 48% across 2025 per Omdia, mostly through devices under $200. Its Phantom flagships have never seriously troubled Samsung or Apple. Locally and internationally, TECNO is not the name you expect on a first-in-the-world engineering claim. Some of that is earned, since TECNO historically followed trends rather than set them. Some of it is snobbery about a brand associated with budget phones and African markets. Either way, this is a big deal for TECNO to be first to.

The Slim precedent

There is also a recent precedent for taking TECNO’s concepts seriously. We covered the Spark Slim when it appeared as a 5.75mm concept at MWC in March 2025, months before Apple’s thin phone existed. It shipped that September, and went on sale in Kenya at KES 27,999. When the iPhone Air arrived, the resemblance was hard to miss: the thinness, the camera placement, the overall slab design. We are not claiming Apple copied TECNO, but the timeline is public, and readers can judge it. The Spark Slim 2 followed at MWC 2026 at 5.49mm, thinner than the 5.6mm iPhone Air, with a claimed 0.7mm bezel that trailed only Samsung’s lab panel.

Apple is heading the same direction. Reports collected by MacRumors describe a 20th anniversary iPhone for 2027, possibly named iPhone 20, with a curved all-screen design and the bezel hidden from view. Those remain rumours, and one recent account suggests the final design may keep a slim border. If accurate, TECNO can be claimed to have shown the look more than a year earlier.

Expect this one to ship too, in some form. The real questions are practical. A screen that reaches the metal edge invites accidental touches, so palm rejection has to be excellent, and there is no bezel left to absorb a corner drop, so cases and tougher glass will matter more. If the technology reaches retail TECNO devices, the Phantom line or the POVA line are the likely homes. It has been a while since we saw the Phantom lineup updated.

What to watch is September 3, when journalists can measure the border themselves. Until then, the claim is TECNO’s word plus press images. Do you love the look of a screen with no frame at all, or do bezels not bother you anymore? Tell us in the comments.