Unibody 17"/15" Screen Bezel Comparison

[NATO]

I was just browsing the MacBook Pro section of the Apple site and I noticed the bezel around the 17" MacBook Pro seemed a bit thinner than the 15". The one nitpick I had with the 15" MacBook Pro was the bigger screen bezel, but the 17" seems to cut that down to a more aesthetically pleasing size (in my opinion)

I took the two official gallery images and merged them together to compare the bezels:

An approximate comparison based on the pixel difference between the two bezels on the image shows the 17" Bezel to be just over 18% smaller than the 15" MacBook Pro.

Totally pointless I know, but I thought it was interesting so I thought I'd share it.

 

[kastenbrust]

Did you get the 18% from a comparison of the pictures or from official data because the pictures could have been taken at different distances from the camera.

When i saw the 17" at Macworld the bezel seems more than 18% smaller, it seems way way way smaller, but that may just have been the nirvana i was feeling from seeing such a sexy machine haha

 

[NATO]

All I did was resize the 15" image slightly until the size of the base was the same for both models then compared the width of the bezels using Pixelmator (the 15" one was 18 pixels across, the 17" one was 22 pixels).

Ah, I've just looked at the tech specs of both models and the two models differ in height slightly (I assumed they were both the same). Turns out the 15" is 0.95 inches tall, the 17" is 0.98. That would change things slightly.

Still, the 17" Bezel is still smaller as far as I can see, even if you take that into account. I think the smaller bezel looks far nicer

 

[detz]

comparing images are not the way to go...but, with that said the 17" bezel is much smaller and sexier.

 

[NATO]

comparing images are not the way to go...but, with that said the 17" bezel is much smaller and sexier.

I know, but without the luxury of actually seeing them physically, it's all I got

Just grabbed two images from the Apple page, the two images side by side seem to show a much smaller bezel as you say:

 

[duffyanneal]

Yeah I like the thinner bezel myself. I need every excuse I can come up with to justify upgrading from my 15" unibody.

 

[mars90]

So I also wanted to know the bezel difference, because a screen looks just that much better with less bezel

I didn't compare the pictures, but I got the specs from the Apple page (of the new 2010 MacBook Pros) and calculated the size of the bezel using basic trigonometry (I just divided the screen into two triangles (basically along the line where you would measure the screeen size of 15.4 inches/17 inches))
Because the ratio of screen (I used the pixel ratio which corresponds to the ratio of the screen size) is 1.6 you can use the tangens tan(1.6) to find the angle of the triangles where I divided the screen (It's approximately 57.995 degrees). Now you can use a/15.4 = sin(57.995) to find the width of the screen itself. b/15.4 = cos(57.995) is the equation for finding the depth of the screen.
I found that the screen of the 15.4" model has a width of approx. 13.06" and a depth of 8.162". Using the same method the width of the 17" model is approx. 14.416" and the depth 9.01".

Now I just subtracted these figures from the dimensions that are given on apples website for the whole of the macbook pro (I guesses that the width and depth of the whole thing would be almost equal to the dimensions of the bezel because the screen covers the whole macbook pro and therefore the screenpart should be almost equal to the width and depth of the whole thing).

I got following values for the bezels:

the bezel on top of the screen on the 15.4" models: ~ 1.658"
the bezel on top of the screen on the 17" models: ~ 1.50"

bezel on the side of the screen on the 15.4" models: ~ 1.29"
bezel on the side of the screen on the 17" models : ~ 1.054"

So there you have it the bezel on top of the screen is approx. 9.5% smaller on the 17" model and the bezel on the side of the screen is approx. 18.3% smaller on the 17" model.

You also have to take into account that the screen on the 17" is already bigger and in proportion the bezel looks even smaller.

So I hope this was helpful, as it interested myself how much the difference actually was, and I apologize if it was not entirely accurate, as I relied on apples specs for the whole MacBook Pro and not just screen + bezel, but I think its fairly accurate.

Greetings from Germany

 

[underblu]

So I also wanted to know the bezel difference, because a screen looks just that much better with less bezel

I didn't compare the pictures, but I got the specs from the Apple page (of the new 2010 MacBook Pros) and calculated the size of the bezel using basic trigonometry (I just divided the screen into two triangles (basically along the line where you would measure the screeen size of 15.4 inches/17 inches))
Because the ratio of screen (I used the pixel ratio which corresponds to the ratio of the screen size) is 1.6 you can use the tangens tan(1.6) to find the angle of the triangles where I divided the screen (It's approximately 57.995 degrees). Now you can use a/15.4 = sin(57.995) to find the width of the screen itself. b/15.4 = cos(57.995) is the equation for finding the depth of the screen.
I found that the screen of the 15.4" model has a width of approx. 13.06" and a depth of 8.162". Using the same method the width of the 17" model is approx. 14.416" and the depth 9.01".

Now I just subtracted these figures from the dimensions that are given on apples website for the whole of the macbook pro (I guesses that the width and depth of the whole thing would be almost equal to the dimensions of the bezel because the screen covers the whole macbook pro and therefore the screenpart should be almost equal to the width and depth of the whole thing).

I got following values for the bezels:

the bezel on top of the screen on the 15.4" models: ~ 1.658"
the bezel on top of the screen on the 17" models: ~ 1.50"

bezel on the side of the screen on the 15.4" models: ~ 1.29"
bezel on the side of the screen on the 17" models : ~ 1.054"

So there you have it the bezel on top of the screen is approx. 9.5% smaller on the 17" model and the bezel on the side of the screen is approx. 18.3% smaller on the 17" model.

You also have to take into account that the screen on the 17" is already bigger and in proportion the bezel looks even smaller.

So I hope this was helpful, as it interested myself how much the difference actually was, and I apologize if it was not entirely accurate, as I relied on apples specs for the whole MacBook Pro and not just screen + bezel, but I think its fairly accurate.

Greetings from Germany

This is interesting. I thought the bezel size looked different but I figured that it just seemed thinner on the 17" because of the size. guess this applies to to both glossy and AG