The push for thinness is nothing new. Following the bulky first touchscreen phones of the 2000s,every year brought thinner phones as manufacturers competed to produce the slickest device possible.
But this also limited improvements to battery life and cooling. Build quality was a problem too,most notably seen with the 2014 iPhone 6 lineup — which remains the thinnest generation of iPhones — where the frame could become irreversibly bent.
Apple’s iPhone 6 is the skinniest and most fragile model the company has produced. But materials and design have improved a lot since then.
Things became somewhat more balanced after that. A desire for more power,more durability,better battery life and more capable cameras has seen phones expand again,represented in Apple world as an increase from 6.9mm thick on the iPhone 6 to 7.8mm on the iPhone 16,and even to 8.3mm on the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
The iPhone 17 Air,ifsupply chain analysts are to be believed,may cut things down to 5.5mm.
For Samsung,things are a bit more complex as it has a far more diverse back catalogue of phones,including ultra-thin foldables. But for stable,non-folding phones,the thinnest appears to be the 2015 Galaxy A8 at 5.9mm,whereas the latest S25 is 7.2mm,and the S25 Ultra is 8.2mm. The S25 Edge is rumoured to be 6.4mm.
In either case,such a slimming would necessarily come with compromises,and,while we won’t know exactly what they are until the phones are officially revealed,we can take a decent guess.
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Less body space means a smaller battery,which either means a shorter battery life or more efficient processing,and my bet is on both. Expect the S25 Edge and 17 Air to need charging more often and have less brute power than the Ultra and Pro models. Running hotter is a possibility,too.
Another thing that takes up a lot of space is the camera. We can see that the S25 Edge has just two rear cameras down from the Ultra’s four. Leaked images of 17 Air casings show just one rear camera,plus a wide Google-style camera bar that’s likely there to help stabilise the thin body. Anyone hoping for a phone that looks like a thin piece of card that you can slip in your pocket will be disappointed because the camera units are likely to be at least as thick as current phones.
This all paints a picture of devices that have the same drawbacks as foldable phones,without the benefit of folding. But then again,we’re yet to hear about their virtues from Apple and Samsung.
Fadaghi said that,even if the latest flavour of iPhone or Galaxy doesn’t take off,the new models could be useful for the brands.
“They need something new to promote and create a halo around. Even if the product doesn’t sell well in the first year or the second year,it potentially gets people talking about why they like their existing handset or the new design,” he said.
“In the long term,it might not matter as much for the manufacturers. A lot of it is about keeping people interested in thinking and talking about the platform,in terms of it originality and innovative approach regardless of whether or not it sells many in the first year.”
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