No person’s Asking for Unnecessarily Skinny iPho...

Smartphones had been sure to get boring. Eighteen years after the introduction of the original iPhone—the glass touchscreen that really modified all the things—there’s little or no with new telephones that may get individuals tenting out simply to be the primary to get The Subsequent Massive Factor. Foldable phones have tried to rekindle a few of that outdated pleasure, but they’re still too expensive. So cellphone makers try one thing new: tremendous skinny telephones.

Each Samsung and Apple shall be launching extraordinarily skinny telephones by the tip of this 12 months. Samsung already announced its Galaxy S25 Edge, and Apple, the copious leaks plastered everywhere in the web strongly recommend, will launch what everyone’s calling the “iPhone 17 Air” alongside its secure of standard and pro-tier iPhone 17s.

Quite a few leaked photographs of dummy models reveal the S25 Edge and iPhone 17 Air to be barely thicker than the USB-C port. Prolific cellphone leaker Evan Blass shared last week that the S25 Edge measures solely 5.8mm thick and weighs 165 grams. A number of well-known Apple leakers, together with Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, TF Worldwide Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, and YouTubers similar to Unbox Remedy, all corroborate that the iPhone 17 Air will clock in someplace round 5.5mm to 6mm thick. YouTuber Sam Kohl, who runs the Apple Track channel, has an intensive video exhibiting off a dummy mannequin for the iPhone 17 Air and the way it compares to the remainder of Apple’s household of iPhone 17 gadgets slated for launch in September.

Check out the perimeters of the iPhone 17 dummy — the Air mannequin is unbelievably skinny. pic.twitter.com/ixadQHuxK5

— Sonny Dickson (@SonnyDickson) April 24, 2025

Had telephones stayed skinny like they had been method again with the iPhone 6 released in 2014, and had bendgate by no means occurred, no one can be making such a hoopla over skinny telephones. However that’s not what occurred. As telephones acquired greater screens, cameras upgraded from single lenses to twin or triple ones, and apps (particularly 3D cell video games) wanted extra highly effective chips, there was just one technique to make them final an entire day, and that was shoving an even bigger battery inside. The draw back to longer-lasting however bodily greater batteries is that telephones ballooned in thickness to suit them.

Cellphone makers gave the individuals precisely what they voted for with their wallets—cellphone habit be damned—and now they’re attempting to promote lesser telephones only for the sake of slimness. Is anyone actually asking for a cellphone that might snap in half like a sweet bar if you happen to grip it too laborious or slip it right into a pair of tight denims? Even a man like me who hates how unattainable it’s to one-hand my iPhone 16 Pro and would vastly admire a thinner and lighter iPhone is questioning whether or not the tradeoffs shall be price it.

A thinner cellphone means a smaller battery. You additionally get fewer rear cameras, as evidenced by the S25 Edge and leaked iPhone 17 Air’s single lenses. Know-how has come a great distance since bendgate over a decade in the past. Chipsets are extra environment friendly and fewer power-hungry, so that you don’t want large batteries for cellphone fundamentals like doomscrolling on TikTok, electronic mail, and net searching. And now you can get lots out of a single digital camera lens—like a number of focal lengths that simulate completely different zoom ranges by cropping in—if the sensor has numerous megapixels. However I fear that the the mass and weight reduction might not be price these compromises. On the finish of the day, each Samsung and Apple’s skinny telephones will nonetheless have large honking screens roughly measuring 6.6 inches, and so they gained’t slot in any pair of cheap pants pockets. Sorry, dude who solely owns one pair of denims and has the define of their cellphone completely imprinted into the entrance pocket!

The preliminary media and influencer buzz will deal with these telephones like they’re the Second Coming of Jesus, however after the frenzy subsides, will anyone care? Will the gross sales numbers bear out any demand for super-thin telephones? We gained’t know till hindsight, but when rumored costs find yourself being right, they is perhaps a tricky promote. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman believes Apple may promote the iPhone 17 Air beginning at $900, which might solely be $100 greater than the iPhone 17 and $100 lower than the iPhone 17 Professional. That’s additionally solely if Apple sticks to the pricing for the iPhone 16 and 16 Professional and doesn’t increase prices because of tariffs. Different rumors have recommended Apple may promote the iPhone 17 Air for greater than the smaller iPhone 17 Professional. In the meantime, Samsung’s S25 Edge might be very dear, too. A leak reportedly from Samsung itself suggests the thin gadget may start at around $1,200. How keen will individuals be to pay up simply to indicate off they’ve the thinnest Samsung Galaxy or iPhone 17? On this financial system and with tariffs threatening consumerism as we all know it? Good luck, guys. Additionally, slap a case on the skinny iPhone, and also you’re again to having a regular-thick iPhone with not one of the higher options.

I believe I’ve made my level. However let’s say that each these skinny telephones are recession-proof and so they’re a success. I nonetheless assume that cellphone makers ought to prioritize extra significant options as an alternative of merely pushing out outrageously thinner ones. How about Apple transport the superior anti-glare shows—the identical ones that Samsung’s been utilizing in its Galaxy Ultra phones—that vastly minimize down on reflections open air? Apple was supposedly going to provide the iPhone 17 Professional screens this tech but scrapped it for some reason. Or how about cameras that really blow away those from Chinese language manufacturers like Oppo and Xiaomi? (People do not know how a lot better the cameras are on telephones just like the Oppo Discover X8 Extremely and Xiaomi 15 Extremely.) Or how about ridiculously fast wired charging that may take your cellphone from 0% to 100% in 10 minutes? There are simply so many ways in which telephones from Apple and Samsung have been leapfrogged by different manufacturers, particularly ones that don’t promote their gadgets exterior of China or Asia, that the very last thing anyone wants is a Actually Skinny Cellphone.