Manufacturers think you want thinner phones, but survey shows otherwise
Aamir Siddiqui / Android Authority
It's official — Samsung will launch the Galaxy S25 Edge later today at its Galaxy Unpacked event. This addition to the S25 family will be the thinnest version yet, and it is kicking off a new trend. Apple is also speculated to be on board the slim train with a possible iPhone 17 Air release in the fall, so is this really the future of smartphones?
Back in January, we asked readers if they really wanted a thinner phone, as the rumors were swirling at the time about both Samsung and Apple. The results of the survey are in, and this is how you responded.
Do you care about smartphone thinness?
Android Authority site poll results
Our main poll received 1,431 votes from readers so far. Only 17.7% of you said that you'd want a super thin phone and don't mind the tradeoffs that come with it, like decreased battery life and fewer cameras.
This isn't too surprising, because you can't make something thinner without making some compromises in other areas. But what actually is surprising is how close the other results are.
As it turns out, 40.3% of readers like how thin/thick phones currently are and prefer them to stay the same. The other 41.9% of readers actually want a thicker phone for more battery life and features.
Now, what we just discussed were poll results from our main site, which is still available to vote in, if you haven't already. We also ran another poll on YouTube more recently, asking viewers how they felt about thin smartphones. Here are those results.
YouTube poll results
Out of over 3,500 votes in the survey, only 10% wanted a slim phone and didn't mind the tradeoffs. Next up is 40% of readers who are okay with how thin/thick phones are right now. Then we have a majority vote of 50%, who want their next phone to be thicker with more battery and features.
So why don't people want thin phones, aside from maybe shaving off some battery life and features? YouTube user KingKoopa0331 tells us that they 'always buy a fat black case to protect my phone so I don't care how thin [it is].' Multiple users also stated that they don't care about how thin a phone is, but would rather see smaller phones overall that are easy to use single handed.
While Samsung may be calling the Galaxy S25 Edge an 'engineering marvel,' it looks like most people didn't really want that. Unless the battery technology is so good that you can actually get better battery life in a smaller package, then we can only expect that incredibly thin phones will take a hit in battery life compared to non-slim models.
Personally, I would like to see manufacturers go back to making non-gigantic phones because yes, they're easier to use one-handed, which is very common these days when you're juggling multiple things at once. They're going thinner, but they really should be going smaller. There aren't a lot of options on the market if you prefer compact phones. And going by the polls, only a very small minority want a super-thin phone. Let's also hope these thin phones don't bend or break either, because we don't need another bendgate.
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