It's time to stop thinking a phone should be premium
True, too many people treat phones like a status symbol or fast fashion instead of a tool that should be maintained and used for many years.
A tool can also be premium, and there is definitely a difference between an average phone and a premium phone.
The problem is all the nonsense about the premium FEEL, it's not a feature when it degrades durability, or requires a cover that removes that premium feel anyway. Glass covers are also more slippery, making it more likely to drop out of a pocket or hand bag or even your hands.
Glass is detrimental in every way for usability, just the extra weight of it, makes drops more likely to cause damage. All the reviewers that push "The Premium Feel" without consideration to the downsides, like being slippery, adding weight, being more fragile and making the phone slightly more bulky, should be banned from making reviews.
Yes, I completely agree on the complicity of reviewers parroting the same PR buzzwords in every single review. It definitely feels like they have played their part in normalising many of these objectively bad and anti-consumer design decisions.
Premium phones make little sense, based on what I've seen everyone puts them in cases anyway. "Premium materials" are slippery and "premium thinness" results in insufficient battery capacity so accessories like phone rings get put on them, and people carry around external battery packs.
Why not just make a grippy, practical phone that I can use as a tool, with removable batteries, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and expandable memory?
Burn the witch!
Because that phone would last and you would only need a new one every 4-5 or however many years instead of 1-2 so capitalist companies won't see that as having any value.
I think companies know what people want and how to make a great phone like that, just none of them will or want to be the first.
The only thing premium phones have going for them are really good cameras. I love midrange phones but the photos they produce are not as good as flagships.
Stop making sense!!!
It's time to stop thinking phones are anything but commodity hardware with variable degrees of shittiness. There are no such things as premium phones, just premium prices.
FINALLY someone gets this. I don't care about the "premium look" whatever that means, I just don't want my phone to break when I accidentally drop it. Which is why I always put a case on my phone
In fact, I'm pretty sure phone manufacturers started putting glass on the back of phones specifically to make them less durable so that customers buy a new phone sooner
I never thought they couldn't. Glass phones were an absolutely ridiculous idea.
It's funny that we buy these metal and glass phones and then protect them with rubber and plastic cases.
New phones are made to show wear so that they lose resale value.
I always buy a new phone and a new case and after some years I ditch the case because it wouldn't hurt to buy a replacement and it feels like a new slimmer version of my trusted phone...
It's not funny, it's moronic. But I guess that's kind of what you meant. 😋
Funny as in sad
"Glass is glass, and glass breaks" I want a metal back phone. I don't care about wireless charging.
Can anyone suggest me an Android that has all these?
I may have found a phone for you. It's called the unihertz tank 2
https://www.unihertz.com/products/tank-2
Comes with a few other really interesting features you don't see on any other phone (like a goddamn laser projector?), though i think the processor is a little underpowered.
I want a metal back phone
Steve Jobs did too, they still needed a plastic window for some antennae on the OG iPhone, then went to full plastic. It has become worse now, the back isn't just for wireless charging. It is also for NFC, UWB, and often cellular/gps/wifi/bluetooth may share antenna connections through the back.
Right there with you though. NFC could probably be packed in a band at the top of a phone. UWB seems of dubious value thus far.
I find the cheap phones are often the "premium" ones.
Those are the ones with plastic backs, headphone jacks, multiple SIMs, smaller size, lighter weight, good physical fingerprint readers, etc.
Nice to finally see a review stating what I've been thinking ever since the Samsung Galaxy 2 was scorned 13 years ago by reviewers for having a plastic back, and not having the premium feel of the much more fragile iPhone.
Ever since it's like a conspiracy of reviewers hailing the premium feel of metal unibodies or glass backs, despite the clearly lower quality of those materials, while dissing superior plastic bodies that weigh less, has way better shock absorption, is less bulky, and is less slippery and therefore less prone to drop out of pockets or bags.
The main reason it feels more "premium" is the extra weight, which is clearly detrimental to usability.
It's like cheap stuff like cheap loudspeakers, where they have iron bars in them to ad weight, to make the speaker "feel" better. Where a speaker with a stronger (magnet) may actually be better.
But with phones it is 100% people fooling themselves, if they think heavier is better, and fragile glass is somehow better than sturdy quality synthetics.
I've been saying this for years. Use nice textured recycled plastic. The amount of cool textured and nice feeling materials out there is insane.
Gimme a plastic screen too. If someone is concerned about scratches they can add a glass protector. Those people already do anyway. There are even plastics that could be used that would resist scratches incredibly well.
Then my whole phone is flexible and nearly unbreakable.
Bro just make it yourself you probably have enough plastic in your body for it
I certainly would prefer a plastic backing than a glass one. Why the fuck does every phone have to be encased entirely in glass? It breaks and it's slippery as fuck, making it more prone to slip out of your hand and break. It's so ubiquitous and universally fucking stupid that I am convinced it's purposely designed so you will drop and break it so you have to pay to fix or replace it.
Every heavy duty aftermarket phone case is mostly plastic and rubberized silicone. Because that shit is 1000 times more durable and shock resistant than glass. Glass's great only for being scratch resistant. There's no reason that every phone couldn't have an otter box-like outer shell built in.
Phone material stopped mattering the moment camera bumps became a thing. Now, nearly everyone slaps a case to balance out the bump.
That said, I miss my completely mirrored-back Sony Xperia Z5 Premium.
Loved my Nokia Lumia phone back in the day. Plastic body and glass screen. Solid af.
High end plastics are by far the superior material from any usability perspective. I hate glass phones, and the first glass phone I bought of course broke in only 4 months! Where I'd never had a phone break on me before. And any of my older plastic phones would probably barely have noticed the tiny drop that broke my glass back phone.
Now I have an added plastic cover, which is ugly, and makes the phone unnecessarily bigger than if it had a quality plastic body instead of the moronic glass.
I will never buy anything but phones with a plastic back in the future. Problem is that often the only alternative is vegan leather, which is also not as durable and will show wear way before a high end plastic back.
You know what's funny? I dream of a form factor like the Nintendo Switch: fully plastic, even the screen, so I could put a high quality glass screen protector like the one I have on the console. The thing is a tank, surviving many falls without a single damage, and I had to swap the protector once in all these years I have it.
Fuck plastic & the oil industry where it comes from.
Totally agree! I can't wait to put that granite-cased phone with wood-backed PCBs in my pocket.
That would be sick
I understand what you mean, but I disagree, there are places where it isn't necessary, needless use of plastic is a problem. But for the back of a phone, it can avoid buying an even bulkier plastic cover, it can extend the lifetime of the phone, in both cases it reduces waste.
I have never once thought that. The fact I have always wrapped my smartphones in an S view style leather case means I could give less than one shit about what the back of my phone has been made of. I watched knuckleheads freeballing their phones, dropping them, cracking the screens, and noped the fuck out of that noise before I even owned my first smart phone. Been doing the leather envelope style case ever since. Knock on wood, never cracked a screen, not tryin to win any beauty contests, just keep my thousand dollar pocket mini computer up and runnin.
When I was younger and more naïve, I used to think a case was useless. I kept my phones in my pocket most of the time, and didn't feel particularly clumsy or reckless. Then I got a phone that happened to have a glass back, and it broke not because I fumbled it, but because it slid out of my pocket onto time floor while I was sitting down. Glass backs on phones are bullshit.
It's time to stop deciding what other people should like.
I will die on the hill that metal unibody phones felt the most premium. Especially Huawei had a few that had a super smooth surface that almost felt like glass.
Metal unibody degrades usability by shielding magnetic/RF signals. That degrades GPS NFC Bleutooth, wireless charging and probably also compass functionality.
So as I see it, metal bodies are probably not a reasonable option.
The issue there is that metal unibody deigns, attenuate RF signal strength. While they can work, it is a tradeoff.
nah phones aint premium until the price is lower f*cking phone costs so you dont have to spend half a months salary just to not have it become junk in 3 years and not be a buggy mess at launch premium is not paying an arm and a leg and not having your every move tracked and sold to the highest bidder
I can't think of anything plastic that I'd consider premium, let alone a phone.
EDIT: Wait, Legos.
That's the thinking the article is arguing against.
But I do have an example.
High end polycarbonate prescription lenses for glasses.
The high index, thinnest, lightest lenses, are plastic. Not glass.
Edit: Thinking more, I wonder how much more expensive it would be to use the same polycarbonate material on phones.
It would certainly be stronger and less prone to breaking. With good coatings, it would be just as scratch resistant.
It would offer the same premium look and similar feel as glass. Just lighter.
Which is a problem of perception and marketing, given that in many cases a plastic that has been specifically engineered to perform a function will, unsurprisingly, be better than an alternative.
So your idea of premium is fragile and expensive?
Plastic has superior usability in every way, weight, bulk, durability, shock absorption, less slippery than glass, meaning it doesn't drop out of pockets handbags or even hands as easily.
So what part about a high end plastic is that isn't premium in this situation?
Lumia 800 was the most premium feeling phone I’ve ever had. It also felt indestructible.
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