Metal, plastic or glass: which material is the best for smartphones

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The design of modern smartphones is not very diverse, which cannot be said about the case materials. There is aluminum, plastic, and glass. Find out what each material is good for and what its disadvantages are in order to make the right choice.

Metal

A metal smartphone looks solid and expensive. So it was before, so it is to this day, although the metal has already descended from the top segment to the budget one and, in general, does not add much value to the smartphone.

pros

1. Looks expensive. If you have a metal smartphone, then you are definitely not a poor man. At least many will think so.
2. Fashionable. Metal has become the main material of current industrial design. It is a thing in itself. If the body is made of metal, then no additional elements and design effort are required. Metal is beautiful and so.
3. 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.

From these advantages, a feeling of high cost is created.

Minuses

1. Bends and deforms. Moreover, in order to bend a smartphone, you don't need to scoff at it at all - just put it in the back pocket of your jeans and sit down. Thus, many smartphones turn into the iPhone 6 Plus. Remember what a bendgate is? Exactly.
2. Shields. 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 leads for the antennas. For the first time this became clear even 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, launching the Galaxy A line of all-metal smartphones. The new products received the network 20% worse than the plastic Samsung Galaxy S5. Also, the all-metal body does not allow wireless charging.
3. Thermal conductivity. The plus easily turns into a minus. When powerful metal smartphones are working at full strength, 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 premium functions to be implemented in the device. Yes, and bends!

Plastic

Plastic smartphones can be of any color and, in general, any shape, for example, curved, which was at one time LG G Flex. Also, plastic opens the way to a variety of finishes. Glossy, matte, leather-like, metal-like - with plastic, designers get absolute freedom. Despite the fact that plastic is cheaper than other materials, the smartphone itself can be more expensive than metal and even glass competitors.

pros

1. Price. Plastic smartphones are cheaper to manufacture.
2. Elasticity. In general, plastic is a very durable material, it is resistant to bending, twisting, and perfectly absorbs impact energy. Sony has used this property in many smartphones, such as the Sony Xperia Z5. Its body was made of metal and the corners were plastic. When the smartphone fell to an angle, the energy was not transferred to the internal components of the device, but was extinguished by plastic. Note that complex composite materials, such as fiberglass-reinforced plastic, have even greater strength. Designed for the military industry, it is now being used to build smartphones as well. For example, the new Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact.
3. Doesn't shield. Plastic perfectly conducts radio waves, regardless of thickness and strength. That is why we see plastic cables for antennas in metal smartphones.
4. Colour. Plastic can be of 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 besides, the material is interesting enough to be used even in expensive top-end smartphones.

Minuses

1. Feels cheap. Many plastic smartphones are perceived as uncomplicated crafts, although they can be expensive.
2. Looks cheap. Making a plastic smartphone look expensive is not so easy.
3. Colored. Plastic may change color on contact with other colored surfaces. For example, a white smartphone, having been in a jeans pocket, can become denim.

As a rule, a plastic smartphone is a cheap device in every sense.

Glass

For the first time 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 expensive, expensive, but fragile. Glass backdrops break just as well as glass screens. Even with Gorilla Glass 5.

pros

1. Doesn't shield. Glass does not interfere with radio waves, therefore, unlike metal smartphones, glass does not need any plastic inserts for antennas.
2. Looks awesome. 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 incidence of light, catch light spots and reflect them in the form of rays.
3. Feels expensive. Like metal smartphones, glass smartphones pleasantly cool the palm, delight with the smoothness of the surface and awaken 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.

Minuses

1. Fragile. No one has yet succeeded in creating indestructible glass, so dropping a glass smartphone is strictly prohibited.
2. Scratched. It doesn't matter what the manufacturer says, but the glass is covered with scratches once or twice.
3. Slippery. Glass smartphones slip out of your hands like an ice cube.

You need to be extremely careful with a glass smartphone, because it is not only an expensive thing, but also very fragile.

So which is better?

Aesthetes will love glass smartphones, no matter how fragile they are. Plastic, on the other hand, is universal, found in all segments and can be presented both in the form of a budget material and an expensive high-tech composite. But metal is the worst thing that can be. It deforms and does not transmit radio waves. However, it is metal smartphones that are especially popular today.

What smartphones do you like? Vote and share your experience in the comments.