The Greatest Phone Chins From The Pre-Notch Era, Ranked
Before bezels went extinct, chins reigned supreme
The race to wipe bezels off the face of the Earth has led to an identity crisis. Today’s phones all follow the same pattern, that of packing some sweet internals between layers of glass. Sure, we’ve got high refresh rates and processors that could make an old computer blush. But gone are the adventurous smartphones that dared to dream. Things have truly gone downhill if having a headphone jack on a device is seen as a display of courage. Removable batteries and camera shutters? Forget it.
Phones were a whole lot cooler a few years ago.
In a desperate bid to relive the past, I’ve made a tribute to the smartphone gods. While the phones on this list weren’t necessarily successful, they remain iconic testaments to their times. With physical traits that set them apart from the sea of glass slabs, these devices stood the test of time on their own terms.
No, this list isn’t going to have the likes of the Essential Phone or Xiaomi’s Mi MIX. This list is a tribute to the phones of old. Back when devices didn’t look like identical glass sandwiches, brands had their own personal flair to them. From iconic polycarbonate backs to neat notification lights, here are the phones that you could tell apart from a distance.
I split them into three tiers that steadily increase in significance. As for picking between them, the cake is all yours.
Tier C— The Bizarre
Blackberry Passport
Phone design began to decay in 2013 but BlackBerry was having none of it. Like the emblem of mobility that the word signifies, BlackBerry’s Passport decided that to be hip was to be square. With a 4.5" square screen, BlackBerry compared its device to the IMAX film format, one that doesn’t sacrifice screen estate for productivity.
It wasn’t the most pleasant to hold but it worked. And the Passport wouldn’t be a BlackBerry phone without its iconic keyboard. Despite being smaller than the BlackBerries of yore, this set of keys was more than serviceable.
LG Optimus Vu II
A 4:3 screen sounds like a typo. But this bizarre idea was successful enough that it warranted a second iteration from LG. With a stylus bundled, LG’s Vu II was a neat companion for noting and sketching. But one couldn’t slide it into the handset like you could on Samsung’s Galaxy Note devices.
The chin isn’t anything to write home about, adopting the same button+touch combo that was prevalent at its time. But the Vu II’s square chin is one worthy of celebration nonetheless. It was far from the weirdest from LG’s stable but it was odd enough to make the list.
Amazon Fire Phone
Ah, Amazon. In a bid to sell everything they possibly could, the e-commerce giant decided to design a phone that could account for everything that one could want in a smartphone. But all the Fire Phone did was uncover the not so fine line (the air strip) between theory and practice. The five cameras were treated like unsightly screws exposed to the surface in 2014. They’d have been downright haunting in 2021.
Those five eyes served a single purpose: to dynamically shift UI and icons by tracking your head. It solved a problem no one had and gave birth to new ones. But the Fire Phone did give us this strange chin. All Amazon did was create the hardware equivalent of “This meet could have been an email.”
Tier B — The Models
HTC One
Before HTC withered into a shadow of its former glory, it was churning out some gorgeous phones. Phone design was placed on a pedestal, where it rightly belonged. With its aluminum body, chamfered edges (I still miss them), and front-facing BoomSound speakers, the HTC One M7 made its rivals look like plastic knockoffs. I’d know because my dad had one of these metal maidens. I loved it enough to get the One M8.
I’d hold the metal-clad device and admire its edges every now and then. It’s a feeling that glass phones have yet to replicate. I’d place my thumb on the One’s chin, brushing the cold metal as the phone stirred to life. Little did I know what smartphones would turn into.
LG G5
Modular designs looked like the future of smartphones in 2016. Alas, we’ve charted a course quite unlike what was promised. Back in the day, Google’s modular smartphone Project Ara had some promising chins. Motorola got in on the action too with its Z Mods. But LG went ahead and actually shipped an unorthodox modular phone first, the svelte metal G5. With a novel release mechanism akin to a gun magazine, users could slot in a new battery on the go. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve loaded and reloaded a G5 at a store. LG succeeded in transforming a mundane ordeal into something special. As for the chin, that’s where things get real outlandish.
LG’s desire to switch batteries led to the birth of modular chins, dubbed “Friends.” From a camera grip and a battery pack to a DAC module by Bang & Olufsen for high-quality audio, these chins were far from gimmicks. They augmented the user experience while making the transition itself a memory worth remembering. Alas, LG abandoned its Friends in order to, yes, cut down on bezels on the G6.
Nokia N9
From its gentle curves to its seamless transition from glass to cyan polycarbonate, the N9 just felt right. Not just as a piece of tech but as a daily driver that wouldn’t get in the way of your day. Its pillow shape was a blessing for ergonomics and the engineering challenges to bring it to life must have been nothing short of maddening. The N9 bet big on swipe gestures and eschewed buttons on the front, a move that sounds reasonable in 2021 but transpired a decade earlier.
The chin housed a front-facing camera, a strange design decision at the time. Selfie cameras weren’t all the rage in 2011 so it was a forgivable offense. Xiaomi would eventually take a page from the N9 with its first premium device, the Mi MIX. Nokia’s sense of design would spill onto the phones it would design, right from the Lumia phones at the top of the pack to its budget-oriented ones. No other manufacturer did polycarbonate the way Nokia did. As a former Lumia 620 owner, I still miss how it felt. And it’s a damn shame that we switched to devices that can crack on both sides. End rant.
Tier A — The Icons
Sharp Aquos Crystal
Before the iPhone showed up, screen-to-body ratios were downright comical. And before Sharp’s Aquos Crystal showed up, we had black borders all around our screens. The extra real estate of today’s smartphones allowed screens to grow from the 16:9 aspect ratio of yore. The front-facing camera, the front-facing speakers, and the fingerprint sensor now had to find a new home. This revolution was the result of Sharp setting a precedent for the industry back in 2014.
The Crystal’s chin was one to remember simply because it stuffed in everything from a microphone to a front-facing camera. With even the cheapest of phones shrinking bezels by the millimeter today, we’re getting access to screen estate levels that were once unthinkable. But that advancement has come at a cost. Gone are the chins of yesteryear. The sea of glass is here to stay.
Sony Xperia S
As much as I wanted my mom’s old Xperia Arc S to show up on this list, it was my brother’s Xperia U that effortlessly caught my attention. With a transparent line running across its chin, Sony’s range of phones (including the Xperia S) could, at the time, light it up to display notifications. With various color options and third-party app integration, the phones stood out from the crowd. Scroll across the gallery or gaze at your music albums and you’d be met with a taste of what the lighting could deliver.
Another neat addition was the Xperia U’s swappable chins. You could swap the default one for a chin of a different color, granting it a snazzy two-tone look. Yes, black and yellow was most certainly an option. While some users weren’t fans of the festive lighting or the ability to switch its pants, I found the Xperia U a noteworthy distraction from the trend-adopting devices in black.
Apple iPhone SE
Apple stepped into the bezel killing with its own obtrusive take on the infamous notch. And while its notch could have served as an airstrip, it soon became a means of identity. But before the notch, the iPhone’s home button served that very purpose. It remains a reminder of the somber fact that even the most iconic features of a phone can disappear someday.
The circular button immediately drove home the fact that the svelte device in your hands was an iPhone. While it was a weak point mechanically (it had fallen off my iPod Touch once), it was still a means of identity. And as any fantasy novel would tell you, names had power. 2016 saw Apple switch the home button to a solid circle that used a haptic feedback engine to deliver a fake “click.” And with the bezel war upon them, the iPhone X dropped the button for good. Sure, Apple held on for as long as it could. But it showed that even the very best button could one day no longer have a home.
These chins may have been iconic but in a desperate bid to grant users more screen estate, brands had to design phones without them. The move brought about screen-to-body ratios that were hitherto unheard of. They had to let go of what was to embrace what smartphones had become: media consumption devices. Phones remain marvels of engineering that we take for granted. And phone design is no less complex than it was a decade ago.
But on one fine day, consumers stopped clamoring for phones that stood out visually. Gone were the motivations behind purchasing something as functional as a BlackBerry or as charming as a cyan Nokia. In the war against bezels, smartphones turned into clones with only a peeping notch to discern them (they’re going away too). Phone users don’t stop to smell the roses anymore. And in a world where tech moves at a kinetic pace, I doubt anyone will stop to smell the ashes either.
Chin up, old phones. You will be missed.
