what is the point of bezels?

[JAW96]

I was wonder what is the point have the bezel on a monitor,phone, or TV, I'm assuming that companies know that we like as small of a bezel possible so that makes my guess they have some sort of purpose to them. So does anyone know the answer to this? 

[miyabwah]

to hold it together...

[SSOB]

Protection of the screen.

[BiFii]

Stability.
Dunno what else.

[JAW96]

Protection of the screen.

well companies are starting to shrink them down so I was assuming it was some sort of internal hardware thing.

[terrytek]

I believe for screen protection

[TechTheWorld]

There are usually 4 points... One at each corner.

[Flojer0]

It helps protect the screen from shipping damage. If you never needed to ship the screen you would never need a bezel. The shrinking of bezels is most likely due to improvements in materials and an increase in the durability of the screens themselves.

[Suspectmammal]

Perhaps for aesthetic value?

I have a Galaxy S4 and i think the Silver bezel looks very nice.

[Puddleuk]

All of the above are accurate. Personally I wouldn't mind a display with a thin bezel but a display with NO bezel is out of the question, simply because if you drop it there is nothing protecting the screen from taking a direct hit.

[Glenwing]

well companies are starting to shrink them down so I was assuming it was some sort of internal hardware thing.

 

They can shrink them because they keep coming up with better ways to build them so they can make them thinner yet still provide the same functionality.  That is what engineers do.  It doesn't mean bezels don't have a purpose though, we're just coming up with better ways of designing them.

[GoodBytes]

sometimes the bezel is needed for other things. For example on the tablet with digitize pen, the bezel allows an extension of the digitizer to better track the pen on corners... which is usually an issue with technologies like Wacom's (other technologies like N-Trig which does not have this problem have other downsides, which does not make it a better choice). Also, it's to give you room to hold the the device without having to cover any viewable area or interact with the system.