The design of modern smartphones is not very diverse, which cannot be said about the case materials. They can be aluminum, and plastic, and glass. Find out what each material is good for and what its disadvantages are to make the right choice.
Metal
A smartphone made of metal looks solid and expensive. So it was before, and so it is to this day, although the metal has already descended from the top segment to the budget and, in general, does not add much to the cost of the smartphone.
Pros
It looks
expensive.
Fashionable. Metal has
become the main material of current industrial design. It is a thing in itself.
If the case is made of metal, then no additional elements and the stress of
design thought are no longer required. Metal is beautiful and so.
Thermal conductivity. The metal is cold. The same feeling when you hold your smartphone and feel how it pleasantly cools your palm. Tactile sensation is also important.
Cons
It bends and deforms.
Moreover, to bend the smartphone, you do not need to mock it at all — just put
it in the back pocket of your jeans and sit down. This is how many smartphones
turn into the iPhone 6 Plus.
Escapes. Metal does not transmit radio waves. LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth-all these signals are not easy to break through the metal case, so you have to make ugly external conclusions for the antennas. For the first time, this became clear under Steve Jobs, when Apple released the iPhone 4 and it did not catch the network well. A few years later, Samsung stepped on the same rake, starting the release of a line of all-metal smartphones Galaxy A. The new products received the network 20% worse than the plastic Samsung Galaxy S5. Also, the all-metal case does not allow for wireless charging.
Thermal conductivity. A plus easily turns into a minus. When powerful metal
smartphones are working at full power, the case can get hot enough to fry eggs
on it!
So, the paradox: the very material that makes a smartphone premium, does not
allow you to implement premium features in the device.
Plastic
Smartphones made of plastic can be of any color and, in general, of any shape, for example, curved, as was the LG G Flex at the time. Also, plastic opens the way to a variety of types of finishes. Glossy, matte, leather. Even though plastic is cheaper than other materials, the smartphone itself can be more expensive than metal and even glass competitors.
Pros
Price. Plastic smartphones are cheaper to produce.
Elasticity. In general, plastic is a very strong material, it is resistant to
bending, twisting, and perfectly absorbs impact energy. Sony has used this
property in the creation of many smartphones, such as the Sony Xperia Z5. Its
body was made of metal, and the corners were plastic. When the smartphone fell
on the corner, the energy was not transferred to the internal components of the
device but was extinguished by plastic. Note that even more strength is
provided by complex composite materials, such as plastic reinforced with
fiberglass. Designed for the military industry, it is now being used to create
smartphones as well. For example, Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact.
It does not screen. Plastic perfectly conducts radio waves regardless of
thickness and strength. That is why in metal smartphones we see plastic wiring
for antennas.
Colour. Plastic can be any color, and this was used by Nokia, releasing orange,
light green, and yellow smartphones.
Plastic gives the manufacturer more freedom when creating a design, and the material
is interesting enough to be used in expensive top-end smartphones.
Cons
It looks cheap. It is not so easy to make a plastic smartphone look expensive and luxurious.
It is being painted. When in contact with other colored surfaces, the plastic may change color. For example, a white smartphone, having been in the pocket of jeans, can become the color of denim.
Glass
For the first time, the glass appeared in the iPhone 4 and Nexus 4, but the real boom began after the release of the Samsung Galaxy S6. Glass smartphones look decent, but at the same time quite fragile. The glass backs beat just as well as the glass screens.
Pros
It does not screen. Glass does not interfere with radio waves, so, unlike metal
smartphones, glass does not need any plastic inserts for antennas.
It looks amazing. Glass allows you to create beautiful visual effects, such as
a sense of depth, change the color of the panel depending on the angle of
light, catch light spots and reflect them as rays.
Looks luxurious. Like metal smartphones, glass ones cool the palm of your hand,
delight with the smoothness of the surface, and evoke the feeling that you are
holding a luxury item in your hand.
A glass smartphone is usually an expensive device with a claim to premium
status.
Cons
Fragile. No one has
yet succeeded in creating unbreakable glass, so it is strictly forbidden to
drop a glass smartphone.
It scratches. No
matter what the manufacturer says, but the glass is covered with scratches on
one or two.
Slippery. Glass smartphones slip out of your hands like an ice cube.
With a glass smartphone, you need to be extremely careful, because it is not
only an expensive thing but also very fragile.
So which is better?
Aestheticians will love smartphones made of glass, no matter how fragile they are. Plastic is universal, it is found in all segments and can be presented both as a budget material and as an expensive high-tech composite. Metal is the worst thing that can happen. It is deformed and does not pass radio waves. However, it is metal smartphones that are particularly popular today.
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