Samsung was the first to announce its thin and light mobile phone with a thickness of only 5.8mm this year.Galaxy Edge S25, and Apple is expected to announce a new thin and light model this year.iPhone 17 Air (tentative name), it seems that smartphones are once again returning to the competition of thin and light body design.
The competition for thinness and lightness of mobile phones has been going on for a long time
In fact, as early as when Apple launched the iPhone 4, the focus of competition in the mobile phone market included the lightness and thinness of the body. However, when the development of processor process technology reached a certain bottleneck, coupled with the continuous improvement of processor computing performance, the battery capacity must also be increased to maintain the demand for all-day use of the mobile phone.
As video and online social networking services continued to flourish, subsequent mobile phone products gradually increased in size to meet market demand for larger screens. The Android phone camp at the time began to increase screen sizes from the mainstream 4 inches to 6 inches and above, and even launched designs that could be used as tablets. Apple also increased its screen size from the early 3.5 inches to 4 inches, and at the same time, during the iPhone era, began to add Plus models with screen sizes of up to 6.5 inches.
As the screen body is larger, the battery capacity can be further increased while the body can remain light and thin.
However, subsequent mobile phone products have continued to improve in terms of processor performance, camera functions, and other designs. Even if screen technology adopts more advanced panel bonding and backlight module design, it is obviously difficult to further reduce the thickness of mobile phones. Therefore, mobile phone manufacturers have stopped competing on the thinness of mobile phones and have instead begun competing on mobile phone application functions within a certain body thickness. For example, the camera shooting function currently promoted by various brands, or Sony's continued application of its audio and video technology in mobile phone products.
The challenge of making mobile phones thinner and lighter
The biggest challenge in making mobile phones thin and light is actually durability. Therefore, in the past, many people would use extreme bending methods to test the durability of thin and light phones. In particular, many male users are accustomed to putting their phones in the back pockets of their pants. Once they sit on a chair, the phone will be under great pressure. Therefore, the degree of bending resistance has also become a manifestation of the durability of thin and light phones.
Especially as mobile phone screens are getting bigger and bigger, once the body thickness becomes thinner, it means that its bending resistance will also become lower, but the advantage is that it can make the phone lighter.
Samsung recently launched the Galaxy S25 Edge, boasting that it is only 5.8mm thick, making it the thinnest and lightest mobile phone product in the industry. Apple also plans to launch the iPhone 17 Air (tentative name), which is expected to make the body even thinner, but it is also expected to face durability issues such as whether the phone is easy to bend.
Although Samsung emphasizes that the Galaxy S25 Edge has a high degree of durability, it has not yet provided data on the number of uses that the hinge can withstand, unlike other foldable screen phones. In fact, this is actually related to the difficulty in predicting how users will use thin and light phones. After all, deliberately folding or bending the phone is not a normal usage pattern, and putting the phone in the back pocket of pants is not a usage method recommended by Samsung and other industry companies.
Just a gimmick or evolution?
So, is it really necessary to make mobile phones even thinner and lighter, or is it just a marketing gimmick?
Judging from Samsung's announcement, the camera components used in the Galaxy S25 Edge have actually been redesigned to suit the slim and light design of the body. Its actual shooting performance is still the same as the Galaxy S25 series, but it is placed in a smaller form within the slim and light body. This means that in order to meet the slim and light design of the mobile phone, a series of component designs will be miniaturized. Combined with the continuous improvement of the processor process, it will be more conducive to adding more battery capacity and application components to subsequent mobile phone products, while also making the mobile phone product design more flexible in component configuration.
In response to the trend towards thinner and lighter body designs, the designs of many mobile phone components have been further miniaturized, meaning that future mobile phone products will be able to incorporate more design changes. Therefore, the emphasis on the thin and light body design of the Galaxy S25 Edge launched by Samsung may be a marketing gimmick, but the design of related components within the body may become an opportunity for the development of new designs for mobile phones in the future.
What's the next step?
In fact, the development of mobile phone product design has undergone many changes in key components such as body materials, screen specifications, camera types, processor processes, and battery technology. Therefore, many people believe that mobile phones have generally reached a very tight development bottleneck.
However, with the application of artificial intelligence technology and more photosensitive components, mobile phones may still play an important role in people's lives in the future, but the way of interaction may gradually change.
For example, in the past, mobile phone usage was primarily based on telecom calls. However, with the rise of 3G, 4G, and now 5G mobile networks, users' communication methods have gradually shifted from online messages based on text and stickers to the current mainstream online calls, messages, and other voice messaging interactions. Next, it is expected that users will begin to adopt interactive methods that incorporate artificial intelligence (AI). This may involve AI helping to aggregate large amounts of online information and respond to messages through AI. Therefore, current mobile phone designs may become more diverse and more in line with the needs of AI applications.
Therefore, many people believe thatSmart glassesIt may become a "tool" for communication in the future that everyone carries and uses every day. People can wear it at any time to receive various messages, and "view" the content through retinal projection imaging, or obtain information through sound playback. At that time, mobile phones may still be "accessories" that everyone carries with them, and may not even be equipped with screens, but simply becomePerceive and receive various types of information, and simultaneously perform collaborative computing, and then transmit the results to the glasses for subsequent interaction, just like the screen-free computing products that many new entrepreneurs have proposed.
However, before reaching that stage, current mobile phone products should still have a lot of room for development. For example, after the previously mentioned reduction in size of many important components such as camera modules, coupled with the current continuous advancement of screen and battery technology, we can expect to see more changes in the use of mobile phones (such as Samsung's upcoming development of multi-screen folding and stretchable screen applications). Even turning mobile phones into "mediums" for interactive communication with artificial intelligence may become the next development direction.
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