Smartphone Design Trends
The Role of Smartphones in Attention Economy
Like many other products, portable devices and smartphones have their own trends in design, and have certain fashionable features that change with time. For someone who is searching for a new phone, the body may be an important factor to consider after the internal specs, either wanting to make social a statement, wanting certain performance benefits, or simply loving a certain visual aesthetic.
Currently, smartphones are fairly similar in design as opposed to the early days of experimentation around 2010 to 2015. It was a time when you had manufacturers like Sony creating the Xperia P and Xperia S with transparent menu bars, or Oppo using rotating cameras on the N1 and N3, or Nokia with the C6 and its retracting Qwerty keyboard. Today there is a prominent set of features that can be dismissed as simply following design trends that most people seem to seek (Zahran, 2020), or some that have an underlying function of increasing sales for their devices. The popular features on today’s designs include the notch to house the front-facing camera, curved display corners, curved display glass around the edges, a large display to body ratio with a lack of bezels, and a multitude of cameras on the rear. Whilst some of these design choices may have been to purely aesthetical, others have compromised various ergonomic factors, such as the lack of bezels that doesn’t give a place of rest for one’s fingers on the screen, or the addition of displays with curved glass edges that doesn’t accommodate screen protectors that fully cover the edges. The increased size of phone displays over the years has created problems with user interaction, being that a person’s reach over the screen has remained the same.
Body Materials
With smartphone body design, the primary material is an important factor that can determine the way the phone is styled, and also affect certain properties such as reception, heat dissipation, and durability. Metal bodies are often attributed as a premium material, with brands like Apple featuring it exclusively in the majority of their devices. Durability is also a benefit to some extent, as while metal is harder and can take some punishment, when it bends it doesn’t fully recover its original form, and lacks the shock absorption that a plastic body may have, leaving dents visible after any drops. Heat transfer is certainly an advantage too, with most of the heat quickly radiating outwards during processor intensive tasks or hot summer days. Lastly, metal blocks most wireless signals such as reception, WiFi, and Bluetooth, and having a metal body means that the manufacturer must properly design points or bands made of materials like plastic or glass in order to let wireless signals pass from those points.
Plastic bodies are simple to manufacture and can be moulded into many shapes, which contributes to their cheap and affordable factor (Cashify, 2020). Sturdiness is also a well-regarded factor with plastic, as it can absorb impact and flex without permanently deforming unlike metal. However, it insulates heat and doesn’t fare well at thermal transfer. Moreover, it isn’t regarded as a premium material by most, and may not be featured by certain premium brands, but this doesn’t mean it won’t look good if given a great finish or by attaching a cover of your choice.
Like metal, glass also has its own prestige as a premium material, and its shiny front and back could be an advantage for some. However, glass doesn’t suffer from hindering wireless signals, but it does have the big drawback of concerning most users about its strength. The brittle nature of glass makes it a fearful prospect to some, as one drop could mean a shattered screen and rear panel in this case, despite the advancements made in glass durability.
References:
Cashify. (2020). Different phone bodies types explained. https://www.cashify.in/video-different-phone-bodies-types-explained
Zaharan, O. (2020). The smartphone design divide. https://uxdesign.cc/the-smartphone-design-divide-de17aad854b9
This blog is a project for Study Unit DGA3008, University of Malta.
