You just delivered a surprising verdict on slim phones — and the timing couldn’t be worse for Apple and Samsung

Apple and Samsung tried to make ultra slim phones happen, and now it seems that both companies have failed, more or less. Slim phones like the Galaxy S25 Edge and the iPhone Air appear not to have been that interesting to the masses, and sales apparently didn’t go as both companies had hoped. We asked you what you thought about the entire slim-phone situation and whether slim phones have a future… and the results are, let’s say, quite surprising. 

Votes split on whether ultra slim phones have a future 

Our poll gathered more than 700 of you, and curiously enough, the results are almost 50-50. However, one of the answers has slightly more votes than the others.

52.22% of you, at the time of writing, think that slim phones don’t have a future. We have 47.78% of you considering that slim phones do. So, although the results are almost split half-and-half, the majority of you, the PhoneArena readers, seem to think that super slim phones are pretty much doomed. 

And there could be quite a lot of reasons why one would think they have a future or that they don’t.  

iPhone Air and Galaxy S25 Edge

Slim phones look pretty good and innovative, but at the moment, the tech appears not to be entirely there. Phones like the Galaxy S25 Edge and iPhone Air suffer from a very annoying disadvantage in comparison to other phones, and it is battery life.Yes, silicon-carbon battery tech does exist out there, and Chinese phone makers are using it, equipping normal-thickness phones with huge batteries that we previously wouldn’t have thought were possible. So, the tech to get more battery without growing in thickness does exist. Weirdly enough, neither Apple nor Samsung has decided it was worth it for their models. Meanwhile, it’s also possible that some people find slim phones uncomfortable or potentially not that durable. We found in our iPhone Air review that holding it feels premium and unique, but its titanium frame can still dig into your hand if you squeeze it too hard. And that’s not the most comfortable feeling out there. 

We also found that it can get a bit hot when running intensive tasks. 

There’s also the curious question: if slim phones don’t have a future, then what does? I pride myself on my good imagination, and I can pretty much come up with all sorts of things, including sci-fi-sounding ones, for the future of mobile technology. 

Phones without buttons, rings as phones, earrings as phones, phones directly implanted in your brain – you name it, I’ve probably thought it. Obviously, those aren’t happening in the foreseeable future. 

Do ultra slim phones have potential? 

If you ask me, I’ll probably be voting with the people claiming that they have future, but I’d put an asterisk next to my answer. Not because the tech is here yet, but exactly because the tech isn’t entirely here yet. I think that lightweight and elegant slim phones have quite a lot of potential, if only companies would adopt battery tech to ensure I won’t have to plug it in every night. That’s just not my thing. There’s also a type of “slim” phone that I would actually favor: slim foldable phones. Like the Galaxy Z Fold 7, for example, which is super thin unfolded, yet it’s durable, you can multitask on it, and it’s portable. That’s more like the type of thing I can imagine as the foreseeable future of smartphones.

Of course, equipped with a big battery, using silicon-carbon tech, or other tech. Battery life’s just way too important for me to disregard that aspect. I like to be out, I like to use my phone when out, and one thing I don’t like at all is having to charge it too often. 

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