Amid the throngs of humanoid robots, automotive ideas and futuristic shows at Cellular World Congress in Barcelona, dozens of individuals swarm round one explicit stand. From a distance, it seems to be one in all many cubicles showcasing yet one more smartphone lineup. However a better look reveals what everybody’s eagerly attempting to get their arms on: a remarkably slim telephone not like something I’ve ever seen.
On show is Tecno’s Spark Slim telephone idea, a handset measuring 5.75mm thick (skinnier than a regular pencil) and weighing solely 146 grams, in keeping with the corporate. After ready about quarter-hour for my flip, I decide up the coveted telephone and am immediately amazed. It is gentle as a feather and but does not really feel like one thing I can snap in half. I do my very own visible thickness check by pulling a pen out of my backpack and evaluating it: the Spark Slim is, the truth is, notably thinner.
Tecno is not the one firm that appears to imagine slim is in. Just a few halls down, Samsung shows its Galaxy S25 Edge, which stays simply out of attain behind a barricade, surrounded by a equally impenetrable crowd of keen spectators. Particulars on that telephone, from specs to launch date, are simply as slim as its look. However reviews counsel we’ll see it someday this 12 months.
Learn extra: Better of MWC 2025: Inexpensive Telephones and Cool Digicam Ideas
Oppo, too, has launched the Discover N5, which it calls the “world’s thinnest book-style foldable,” measuring simply 8.93mm thick when closed and 4.21mm thick when opened. The scale and form blew me away once I examined it, and helped assuage a few of my reservations in regards to the practicality and bulkiness of different foldables. And maybe one of many greatest rumors main as much as the anticipated launch of the iPhone 17 lineup is a possible iPhone “Air,” a thinner (and presumably lighter) model of Apple’s handset.
The Tecno Spark Slim telephone idea is thinner than a pencil. It felt tremendous gentle in my hand.
However a thinner telephone, whereas a cool flex, can result in drawbacks. Much less house typically means a smaller battery, and subsequently shorter battery life. Digicam {hardware} can get scaled again, too, resulting in decrease picture high quality. Space for storing can equally take a success. These are all main concessions for telephone patrons, who nonetheless rank battery life, digital camera high quality and space for storing amongst their high priorities.
Pushing the bounds will be disastrous, as Samsung realized when it opted to slim down the design of the Galaxy Be aware 7, just for units to start out smoking and for the telephone to finally be recalled. Cellphone makers additionally should hold sturdiness on the forefront, particularly if patrons are paying a fairly penny and anticipate their units to final.
“You may’t simply be skinny; it’s a must to nonetheless have all of the bells and whistles of a premium telephone,” Nabila Popal, senior director of information and analytics at IDC, tells me at MWC. “The query is, how are OEMs [phone makers] going to attain that with out compromising the opposite extra necessary options like battery and digital camera?”
The Galaxy S25 Edge is coming, we simply do not know when — or some other particulars.
That’ll be the problem as extra corporations undoubtedly lean into the skinny telephones development. But when it is not essentially what customers have requested for in droves, why hassle slimming down units?
“For essentially the most half, it is an try for OEMs to distinguish,” Popal says. Whereas generative AI was the clear spotlight-grabber throughout final 12 months’s MWC, it is turn out to be so ubiquitous that this 12 months, the main focus has been extra about technique and implementation. Subsequently, telephone makers must discover a new option to stand out, and an eye-catchingly slim and interesting gentle system is a method to do this.
This method appears to be working in locations like China, the place corporations like Honor, Xiaomi and Huawei have all debuted slim premium units (which regularly double as foldables, too). However Popal provides that simply because one thing resonates in China does not essentially imply it should in different components of the world, as customers in China are typically extra receptive to distinctive telephones than they’re in America. However it illustrates that, at the least someplace, slim telephones are already hanging a chord.
Learn extra: MWC 2025: The Weirdest Telephones We have Seen in Barcelona So Far
Apple releasing a thinner telephone may very well be notably advantageous, particularly because it struggles to distinguish its iPhones from one another, says Anisha Bhatia, senior analyst of client platforms and units at GlobalData.
“For instance, the iPhone 15 Plus mannequin at present occupies an unsure place in Apple’s lineup, wedged between the bottom mannequin and the extra feature-rich Professional and Professional Max variations, Bhatia says. “This ambiguity has led to confusion amongst customers, who battle to distinguish the Plus fashions based mostly on worth proposition and have set. Gross sales knowledge signifies that the Plus fashions have underperformed compared to different iPhone variants.”
However, one thing flashy like a skinny iPhone is simpler to tell apart, and will have a greater shot at capturing the eye — and {dollars} — of buyers.
The Oppo Discover N5 is an instance of a skinny telephone the doubles as a foldable, measuring simply 8.93mm thick when closed and 4.21mm thick when opened.
So in a couple of 12 months’s time, will the very telephones that MWC 2025 attendees eagerly crowded round be of their pockets and arms, now capturing images of no matter is deemed the following tech innovation? Will skinny telephones turn out to be ubiquitous and win?
“Thinness will not be going to be a must have, however it’s undoubtedly a characteristic that makes a telephone really feel extra premium, and it is a good to have,” Popal says.
What was as soon as revolutionary typically turns into the norm. Only a few years in the past, an even bigger telephone display was thought-about a particular characteristic, however has now turn out to be customary. Alternatively, foldable telephones have largely stayed area of interest, much more than 5 years after the debut of the Samsung Galaxy Fold. Slim telephones might go down both route; it is simply too early to foretell, Popal says.
Additionally, what’s previous is new once more. The development towards thinner telephones harkens again to the recognition of Motorola’s authentic Razr, which turned a popular culture phenomenon upon its launch in 2004 due to its slim construct, distinctive form and trendiness (who would not desire a scorching pink telephone identical to Paris Hilton’s??). Motorola’s been working to recapture that zeitgeist by reviving the Razr telephone line within the type of a foldable smartphone.
Again to the current day, even when skinny telephones do not find yourself going mainstream, which may not be such a nasty factor, Popal suggests.
“I might argue, why do you wish to make it the norm? Preserve it area of interest, hold it premium,” she says. “The earlier it turns into a norm, the earlier the profitability goes.”
And the earlier crowds transfer on to swarm across the subsequent huge (or slim) factor.
Watch this: First Take a look at Samsung’s Shock Galaxy S25 Edge