The choice is clear - Aluminium body for high end smartphones

A lot of phone companies are trying to build slim and sturdy phones for the ever growing market of steroid enhanced hardware capabilities. With phone manufacturers stuffing more RAM and precision cameras in the modern phones, the weight and robustness of the frames becomes all the more important. Today, some manufactures prefer a fiber body to reduce the overall weight in comparison to metal bodies. However, there’s something which still draws a larger advocacy of using aluminium bodies instead of a plastic or fiber.

In 2007, Apple CEO Steve Jobs penned an open letter highlighting changes to the company's environmental policy in hopes of achieving "a greener Apple." In the letter, Jobs specifically noted the Mac maker's adoption of aircraft-grade aluminum in order to improve recycling uptake. Apart from the cost reduction implications, Apple is strongly in favor of aluminium usage in all its products for improving its year on year recycling capabilities with more than 70% recycle rate by weight. Moreover, Apple considers its products to be the pinnacle of art and design. Aluminium has always been their forte in producing the iconic finishing on the iPhones.

iPhone's 7000 series aluminium body

Even after the ‘bendgate’ scandal that hit them, Apple still showed commitment in sticking with the decision of using Aluminium, only this time in a newer and stronger avatar. They upgraded their aluminum alloy from 6000 to 7000 series Aluminum which increased the tensile strength of the alloy even more.

Let’s look at some of the reasons why most of the high end manufacturers are shifting to aluminium bodies for their phones.

• Aluminum is lighter than most metals and pretty rigid when compared to plastics.
• A unibody of aluminum allows for better sturdiness than plastic jigsaw puzzle pieces - those tend to creak and bend and fall apart.
• Aluminum is a fantastic conductor of heat. For example Apple's MacBooks are thinner than plastic variants could ever comfortably be. And if they were, the air coming out would be searing hot, and the plastic would be too thin for comfort. The aluminum acts as a heat sink, dissipating heat to the environment, allowing fans to run cooler and quieter.
• Aluminum is soft enough to be precision machined, allowing for a great finish, and a good fit of all parts.
• It has a low coefficient of thermal expansion - allowing it to be unibody without expanding so much that it would stress parts that are screwed into the chassis - like the main board, etc.

No wonder others like HTC (One M9), Samsung (Galaxy S6), LG's (G5) and now One Plus have gone full out on using the green metal instead of the rugged plastic bodies. One Plus 3 took everyone by surprise when it ditched the fiber bottom and migrated to a premium aluminum body. Its monstrous hardware capabilities could only be complemented by a highly efficient heat sink – aluminium. 

In a poll conducted by ‘Phonearena’, it came out that people loved the way it felt in their hands. In a costly phone whose veneer is ripped off, exposing the plastic trim of a smartphone for what it really is: cheap. 

Surely, aluminium body phones do look a class apart from the rest!

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