No, it also looks like the border is slightly raised more like the Kindle.
This is the form factor that I would have thought of naturally, before seeing the iPad, since it's similar to the designs that existed for computers at the time. Compare it to previous tablets/slates, laptops, Palm pilots, Newton. Most of them have some kind of raised plastic border (and often not black but some shade of gray).
Problem is, the iPad was designed for finger input. Raises bezels would mean you can't touch a segment of the edge of the screen without pressing hard enough to force your finger into that triangle. Any designer working with finger input would recognize that and design a screen flush with the bezel.
With previous devices, they were generally designed with a stylus in mind (Palm, Newton, slates, etc). A flush bezel, while not required, is a no-brainer when you think about it.