It is all about the case
Samsung phones were sturdier when they were plastic, when they went with metal like Apple they bend like Apple (or worse, given that the screen shatters which it didn't in the iPhone)
The bending epidemic that beset Apple's latest iPhone models is not isolated to Cupertinian kit, according to testers. A video posted on YouTube suggests that the Samsung Galaxy S6 could be even more prone to bending and breaking than the iPhone 6 Plus. A stress test found that not only would Sammy's phone bend, it could even …
That's all, really. Even if you make the thing out of lithium-aluminium alloy, if the screen is a certain size and it fits in certain thickness and weight limits, there will be a point at which the thing is going to bend. There is no way round it.
If you really must put a phone in your trouser pocket, buy a small one. If you must have a big one, don't. But please do not ask for a redesign of the universe with (for instance) a larger value of the electric charge on the electron and the proton simply so you can have a big but not bendy phone, because neither Apple nor Samsung are spawning new universes to order. Yet.
Has anyone watched the Japanology about calculators?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_GVkR0SITo
Casio and Sharp had a race to get to the thinnest possible calculator and upon reaching this orgasmic inducing zenith of design realised it was all a bit pointless and the thin calculators were not as good to use, might be something Mr Ive and other mobile phone designs might want to think about.
It has been discovered that a glass will break if you drop it on the ground and that plastic melts if you heat it up too much. Jesus. This shouldn't come as a surprise, let alone be news, to even the thickest of punters. Look after your stuff and you'll have years of good service from it. Abuse it and it will break.
Or, you know they could design the thing so the owner can use it how they always has, stuff it in his pocket, chuck it on the table, leave it switched on for 5 days, the new designs force users to change how they look after it, so the design is taking precedent over function.
"The bending epidemic that beset Apple's latest iPhone models..."
Actually, if you check out the video made by Consumer Reports, you'll find that 'BendGate' was a forced/fake/phony 'epidemic'. The pressure required to actually bend the iPhone 6 Plus, the actual target of 'BendGate', is considerable. It is more than that required to bend a number of OTHER phones. This 'epidemic' would be better described as invented paranoia of highly questionable sincerity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0-3fIs2jQs
That Samsung and HTC 'phablets' are 'bendable' is old news.
Those good looking hipsters wearing skin-tight clothing to show off their fabulous bodies will naturally have iPhones and so are more likely to bend them, no matter how tough they are.
Whereas the dorks who buy Android phones wear baggy jeans and anoraks, so their phones don't come under pressure. And even if they did, who would listen to them?
(Despite the joke icon, I predict this is going to get downvoted by all camps so hard it'll plummet like a Fukushima core.)
I've given my Samsung S2 a tempered glass screen protector and a rugged case (a rubber holder with a plastic outer case), making it very tough, and easier to hold because without the thickness the protection layers give I found it quite awkward to use because it was too thin and slippery to hold propely.
My phone is a tool, not a fashion statement.
Perhaps, but the whole pointless "thinner and lighter" thing has run it's course and now is at a point where too thin and too light leads to them becoming too weak and thus, bendy. I put mine in a Otterbox Commuter case to thicken it up so that too thin/too light/too slippery phone doesn't slip out of my hand, fall, and break. If I get a 6+ at my next phone upgrade, it will go into a big, thick, ruggedized case. +
How many times has Apple done something, had everybody complain about it bitterly at the time, and then a few years later the whole industry realizes that what Apple did was ultimately pretty inevitable and that Apple actually did a fairly good job of whatever it was.
So Apple, now caught using near enough the cheapest grade of aluminium allow known to man will obviously now not use the same cheap aluminium come September.
Great marketing really does mean that Apple turns lead into gold. It is good while it lasts and boy, they had one hell of a run with this one.
Next !