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Weekend poll: What materials do you want your next Android phone to be made from?
Ceramic? Leather? Or something even crazier?
These days, nearly every smartphone on the market is made from some combination of glass, plastic, and aluminum. There's no doubt that these materials have served us well — hell, the recently-released Pixel 6a features a plastic back so nice, it was easy to believe it was glass — but if you buy enough devices, it starts to get pretty boring. A whole world of exotic, luxury materials exist that are ripe for smartphone makers to use on their next-gen products, but so far, stainless steel seems to be the most adventurous any company is willing to get.
LG's new bending 'glass' might make your next folding phone a lot more durable
LG doesn't make folding phones, but it might make folding phones stronger
LG may have made an ignoble exit from the smartphone market earlier this year, but as a gigantic international megacorp, it still has its hand in. LG Chem, the branch of the company that developers new materials and energy systems, has something that might turn the eye of their in-country rivals at Samsung: a new material that can bend like plastic while being hard as glass.
Why are Android phones plastic-metal-glass boringburgers when there's a world of premium materials to play with?
OnePlus's Kinder Liu explains why they aren't made of stainless steel, sapphire, titanium, or other high-end materials
I've been envious of the iPhone over the last few years for one, not-so-obvious reason: Apple makes its recent flagships out of stainless steel. Here in the land of Android, the best we can really hope for is aluminum and glass, but there's a whole wide variety of premium, super-durable, and exotic materials out there phones could use. So, why are almost all Android smartphones boring glass and plastic or aluminum slabs? I was able to speak with Kinder Liu, COO and Head of R&D at OnePlus, to find out.
Everyone was all hyped up about sapphire crystal displays a few years ago, then manufacturers realized what a complete pain in the butt it was to manufacture synthetic sapphire at an industrial scale. There have been a few phones and watches with this super hard material covering the screen, but Zagg offers a "Sapphire Defense" screen protector, too. That makes it sound like a sapphire glass screen protector, and the high price backs that assumption up. However, JerryRigEverything just posted a video revealing it to be nothing more than treated plastic.
Kyocera isn't exactly a big name in modern Android smartphones, but it does make a lot of rugged devices that don't get much press. It's also big in materials science, which is where sapphire comes in. See, it seems like a safe bet that the next iPhone will have a sapphire glass display, and Kyocera happens to know a lot about manufacturing synthetic sapphire for watches and electrical components. So, they're making sapphire screens for smartphones. This is the thing now.