Nubia patented a new bezel-free Android smartphone in its home country, as revealed by a new listing published by the Chinese State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO). The sketches and renders seen in the gallery below show a handset with a tall screen featuring an aspect ratio of 18:9 (2:1), the very same image format that most major phone makers already adopted over the course of this year. The edge-to-edge display panel of the patented design is positioned above an extremely slim bottom bezel, whereas the top one is virtually non-existent. The front-facing camera depicted by Nubia is centered at the top of the phone and situated inside of a small screen cutout, not unlike the one used by the Essential PH-1.
The overall design of the handset doesn’t leave any room for a physical Home button that could double as a fingerprint recognition sensor, which is why such a circular reader has been positioned on the rear plate of the device, centered approximately a third of the way down. The handset is also shown as sporting a dual-camera setup entailing two horizontally arranged sensors in the top left corner of the back panel and supported by what appears to be a dual-LED (dual-tone) flash unit. The sketch of the device suggests that the imaging module will protrude from its back by approximately 1mm. The design also shows an entirely flat back and slightly rounded corners, with the renders depicting the smartphone as sporting a black matte finish with orange accents, a hallmark of Nubia-made mobile offerings.
A single bottom-facing speaker also appears to be part of the package, as does a 3.5mm headphone jack and a USB Type-C port, as suggested by the sketches. A power key and a volume rocker are situated alongside the right edge of the device when looked from the front, with its SIM tray residing on the opposite side. The sole existence of this patented design doesn’t guarantee it will ever be commercialized, though a bezel-free 18:9 handset would be in line with Nubia’s traditional product strategy of embracing mobile industry trends. The Chinese phone maker is expected to announce new Android devices by early 2018.
