At some point in the last couple of years it was apparently decided that the bezel is the final aesthetic frontier to be overcome in the quest to make truly great TVs. The Samsung Galaxy S8's infinity display is currently leading the charge on mobile handsets, but LG and Xiaomi have also been waging the fight against TV bezels. At this year’s IFA in Berlin Toshiba decided it was time to show off its own attempt.
There's still a small bezel of course, but the aim at the moment seems to be to make it as thin and unnoticeable as possible rather than to eradicate it completely. Baby steps.
To do this, Toshiba has used a special injection molding technique in the manufacturing process and has then applied a laminate film finish which disguises the line between the screen and the frame.
According to Toshiba, this laminate finish has the dual-purpose of eliminating any possible screen glare meaning you won’t have to do strategic lamp placement and curtain closing every time you settle in to watch a film.
Toeing the line
If you’re going to offer a lot of screen, you’d best make sure what you’re offering is high quality, so unsurprisingly Toshiba’s bezel-free model has Ultra HD 4K resolution with a built-in upscaler to improve even non-4K content.
To make sure you don’t miss out on any HDR content,Toshiba has included support for both HDR10 and Dolby Vision which means no matter which format wins out in the end, you’re covered.
There’s actually support for a new third HDR format here, HLG, which will be the one used by broadcasters such as the BBC to transmit HDR content live.
As ever with Smart TVs, you’ll find a Smart Portal with access to popular apps such as YouTube and Netflix (where you’ll probably also source most of your 4K content). However, if you’re on board with Ultra HD Blu-rays or considering picking up a high-powered 4K games console like the Xbox One X, there are also 4 HDMI ports for you to use.
At the moment there’s no pricing or release information for Toshiba’s bezel-free TV but we’ll update here as soon as it becomes available.
- IFA 2017 is Europe's biggest tech show. The TechRadar team is in Berlin to bring you all the breaking news and hands-on first impressions of new phones, watches and other tech as they're announced
