What is up with the "super thin" madness on mobile devices?

[LarsReviews]

One word: #bendgate

 

I don't really get it, why companies are making devices thinner and thinner. Without cases, most devices today are hard to hold. Example iPad Air. The Version 2 will be even thinner. Why?

 

 

 

 

[dragosudeki]

because smaller is better (said no one ever)

[Katsu-K1L]

Because......they're trying to raise awareness for anorexia?

[Fate]

People want thinner and lighter because it's easier to carry and looks better. They don't understand that it reduces the structural integrity of the device. 

[samcool55]

It's "sexy"? I don't know! I do agree with you, i have a tiny but fat lg c-550 and a nice and thick s advance, just love that.

Thin designs makes them terrible *points at apple*

Also because they are tired of throwing resolution numbers at your head they are trying it now with thinness. "Look at this 4.2mm smartphone! thinnest smartphone ever!"

But that won't work, we already learned that *keeps pointing*

[Aniallation]

Because it takes up less space, whether it be a phone in your pocket or a laptop/tablet in your bag. It's that simple. It's more comfortable and easy to slip a thin phone into your pocket vs a thick one, and with a thinner laptop or tablet opposed to a thicker one, you can fit it along with other things like notebooks in your bag, instead of a huge amount of space being taken up by one device. I do agree that tablets are getting too thin though, they've gotten to the point where they just feel too fragile and awkward to hold

[LarsReviews]

Because it takes up less space, whether it be a phone in your pocket or a laptop/tablet in your bag. It's that simple. It's more comfortable and easy to slip a thin phone into your pocket vs a thick one, and with a thinner laptop or tablet opposed to a thicker one, you can fit it along with other things like notebooks in your bag, instead of a huge amount of space being taken up by one device. I do agree that tablets are getting too thin though, they've gotten to the point where they just feel too fragile and awkward to hold

 

My Macbook mid 09 is 2 cm thick. A friend of mine has one from early this year. His is thinner, but the 1 cm doesn't really matter. I would matter here:

 

 

What I am thinking is that the m8 for example is 9.x ish mm and has the sturdiness of a Nokia 3310. The iPhone plus has 7ish(?) mm and the Z2 has 8 mm. It seems as these 2 mm what they are trying save are making the devices less stabile. 

[Aniallation]

What I am thinking is that the m8 for example is 9.x ish mm and has the sturdiness of a Nokia 3310. The iPhone plus has 7ish(?) mm and the Z2 has 8 mm. It seems as these 2 mm what they are trying save are making the devices less stabile. 

Well it also depends on what's in the device. If the 7mm iPhone 6+ and the 9mm HTC M8 has the same 5mm thick internals, the iPhone 6+ would only have 2mm thick metal holding the phone together, whereas the M8 would have metal twice as thick, at 4mm. With the practically sheet metal used to make phones, this is a huge difference.

[LarsReviews]

Well it also depends on what's in the device. If the 7mm iPhone 6+ and the 9mm HTC M8 has the same 5mm thick internals, the iPhone 6+ would only have 2mm thick metal holding the phone together, whereas the M8 would have metal twice as thick, at 4mm. With the practically sheet metal used to make phones, this is a huge difference.

 

Thanks for the information. That the internals have the same thickness is really interesting. 

[Aniallation]

Thanks for the information. That the internals have the same thickness is really interesting. 

Well it was just figuratively speaking, but generally the thickness of the components in phones is very similar between different models of today's flagships because it's all just NAND flash on a PCB alongside a battery. However in the end the above still applies, because you can only make phones so thin that the back is right up against the components and battery, only way left to make the phone thinner is to make the housing thinner, so the metal itself that holds the phone together becomes thinner and thinner as companies continue to push out thinner phones because that's what people want. When that metal gets to the point that it's too thin for the surface area it covers, we have #bendgate