Note to thin-phone makers: Just stop already!

I've said it before and I'll say it again; the thin-phone craze is getting out of hand. It seems that every week a manufacturer puts out a new handset that it bills as the world's thinnest phone (of some sort). We've seen the thinnest candy bar phone, the thinnest flip phone and the thinnest slider phone. Yet now, Samsung is touting a new handset as the world's thinnest 3G phone. The Samsung Ultra Edition 8.4 (a.k.a. the Z320) is a mere 0.3 inch thick, which is even slimmer than the . The 8.4 made its debut this week at a Samsung event at the Louvre in Paris. Samsung also managed to cram some features in this small form factor, with a 2-megapixel camera, a second VGA camera, and the aforementioned 3G support being the top attractions. Also new is the Samsung Ultra Edition 13.8, which Samsung is calling the thinnest slider HSDPA phone.

While I'll admit readily that thin phones are sexy and a design achievement, I think the whole craze is getting old. Personally I don't think trim handsets are that much more comfortable to carry around or to use. And while they add a bit of fashion to technology, I'm more interested in what's inside the phone and how it works. And in the rush to get smaller and smaller, I wonder if those considerations are taking a backseat. You can blame the Motorola Razr for the trend, as it truly spawned a cell phone revolution. And as I said in CNET's review of the Samsung SGH-T509, we keep wondering if, before long, we'll turn the latest thin handset on its side and it will disappear completely.

Source: Gizmodo