General Mobile Designs

General Mobile Designs.

What's next for smart phone design?

As manufacturers strive towards smart phones with all screen fronts, we look at how they can still differentiate themselves in an increasingly crowded market.

When it comes to our smart phones the display and the content it conveys is king. Hence the current obsession for manufacturers to deliver us smart phones with that all screen front, relegating bezels to the history books.

Yet, a swathe of glass can only ever be just that, and curved corners or bevel edges are the only things that can vary. Looking at them straight on it’s pretty tricky to differentiate one phone from another these days.

We’ve even had fun with this in the past with our 'Name the phones quiz' .

A selection of phones from our Name that phone quiz - highlighting that to the casual user, smart phone design is getting too samey

Form factor and materials

For a while the bar form factor was the only one in use, but then this year brought a sudden return of sliders with the vivo NEX phones and the Oppo Find X. Xiaomi and Huawei have also confirmed that they will be releasing sliders of their own. Hiding the cameras when not in use enables makers to achieve a really clean and streamlined design.

The next step-change we'll witness is a change in form factor, notably with foldable phones on the immediate horizon.

Made possible by the advances in flexible OLED displays, who's ever first to market will have immediate brand recognition and the associated kudos that goes with it when it's spotted next to you on the table in Starbucks.

Looking even further out, the use of exotic materials has often teased is with futuristic concept devices. The latest being Turing Space Industries Hubble  Phone. While a clear example of vapour ware, the Hubble Phone demonstrates the flexibility designers will have to create the Smart Phones of tomorrow.

I'll end with a fun fact. Did you know that some of you have something made from Liquid metal? The SIM ejector tool that ships with Apple's iPhones is made from such a material.

About  Liquid metal  Parts

Sold Liquid metal parts are light and strong, produced with the precision of CNC machining, using a process similar to plastic injection moulding. The only limiting factor currently to our knowledge is cost, but once addressed, concepts like the Hubble Phone could become a reality.

Thanks for reading, that was just a flavour of some of the areas where smart phone design could be enhanced. What are your thoughts on the subject, are you looking forward to more colour full and flamboyant smart phones, the next generation of form factors or are you happy with the current designs?

Applications  of  Liquid metal

Typical uses of liquid metals include thermostats, switches, barometers, heat transfer systems, and thermal cooling and heating designs.^[8] Uniquely, they can be used to conduct heat and/or electricity between non-metallic and metallic surfaces.

Liquid metal is used extensively by over clocker s and computer enthusiasts to replace the original thermal interface on CPU and/or GPU dies to improve cooling efficiency and performance.

Essentially, Liquid metal alloys have a dense and varied atom mix that features what's called low free volume. This means that the exact melting point is not clear cut as it is with traditional crystalline metals. In this sense it behaves more like glasses that melt gradually as temperature is increased.

Why different smart phones designs matter?

For some, flaunting the latest and greatest device is just one of many ways that they can show off - irrespective of the underlying reason.

Without getting into needless debates - depending on where you live in the world, the trio of the Sharp Aquos S2, the Essential PH-1, and the iPhone X all arrived at roughly the same time, and the era of the notch arrived .

While iPhone X made the notch mainstream dozens of phones announced since embraced the display cut-out in one form or another - wide, deep and water drop.

Those notches are much like Wayne Rooney’s ears if you'd pardon the comparison - you would never say they’re attractive, but they’re memorable and stand out. While I derided the iPhone X notch upon its launch - for a short while, people knew you had the most expensive iPhone ever created - and for some that was enough.

How are manufactures differentiating themselves

 

Given the front of our phones will remain an emotionless, cold swathe of black glass - at least when not in use, let’s turn our attention to the back.

colours is another area of differentiation. In our recent half-year report we had cause to count the number of colour combinations offered by manufacturers, with a wide selection of base colours being around. While the majority of colours are to be expected (blacks, blues, gold, and reds), there are a plethora of other colours making their way onto the scene including copper, purples, and greens. Next week Apple will unveil its 6.1" iPhone which is rumoured to increase the number of colours available even further.

The relatively blank canvas on the back of our devices is ripe for being exploited to differentiate one manufacturer offering from another, which of course is just what they’re doing.

The trend of Smart Phones backed with glass is allowing manufacturers to create layered glass with varying degrees of reflectivity and is being used to exceptional effect to create some truly stunning designs.

Another excellent example of the back of a Smart Phone being used to great effect is Xiaomi, with its Mi 8 Explorer Edition.

Even the camera layout is being used to create brand recognition. You only have to look at the latest Moto phones and their "smiley face" camera arrangement, either by design or accident - they're easy to spot.

Written &Created by – Ruchit Jain