The Dumb Phone

For most of their history, mobile phones have been shrinking. Small meant portable; it even, in the not too distant past, was a sort of status symbol. Remember Motorola’s runaway hit, the ultra-thin Razr?

But something funny happened on the smartphone’s way to success. Even as the phones themselves became thinner and lighter, their screens started to grow. This trend was driven by consumer demand, but what made it possible were simultaneous improvements in a handful of unrelated technologies. Chemists developed longer lasting batteries that could feed power-hungry displays. Processors became faster. Researchers also developed thinner, scratch-resistant protective glass, the latest being Gorilla Glass.

Read On: Smart, dumb, candybar, flip, and brick: a visual history of mobile phones - Quartz