[evo_9]

Your personal needs are vastly different from the actual market; otherwise what you desire would be more aligned with what manufacturers are making.

It's easy to think manufacturers ignore what the market wants but this is rarely the case. The phones being offered are more or less what people are asking for.

[izacus]

Talking about "market", when you only a choice few similar phones for each platform is kind of pointless. To have a normal market that responds to customer wishes, you first need to have customer choice for them to vote with the wallet.

Mobile phone market isn't that - modern platform lockin makes switching platforms extremely hard, forcing customers to give up major benefits if they want to "vote with the wallet". For example, if you're an Apple platform user, you have a choice of a few form factors which are very similar. Swithing to another platform will cost you a lot of money (rebuying apps, rebuying connected hardware like Apple TVs and similar to retain functionality) and cause you significant hassle. For that people aren't going to just switch to another device/platform just because some properties are annoying them. Platform lock-in does its job well.

Talking about market in these conditions is not really realistic, since "the market" can't respond to product features like capitalism demands for best customer satisfation.

[cocktailpeanuts]

I am pretty sure the market wants more battery life than "no bezel design", if they thought rationally, and was made to choose only one.

It's rather because of the return on investment. From a company's point of view they want to invest as little effort as possible to generate as much effect as possible. Going from 8 hour battery life to 10 hour wouldn't turn the needle for most people, but having a sexy design or a cool new feature would.

So even if they make a breakthrough making a thinner battery, they would rather use that space to pack something else in, instead of making the battery last longer.

People do want longer lasting batteries. In an ideal world the companies may make that happen, but in a real world where there's competition, that's not easy.

This is clearly a different issue from "what the market wants". In reality, you don't always get what you want.

[JustSomeNobody]

> So even if they make a breakthrough making a thinner battery, they would rather use that space to pack something else in, instead of making the battery last longer.

This is exactly what happens in the laptop market. We used to have 6 cell batteries, but because battery density has increased so much, we now only have 3 cell batteries. (Well, actually, we don't as they are more shaped to fit super thin chassis now.) Nevertheless, we the consumer have not benefited in battery life due to the increases in battery density. We have benefited from more efficient chipsets and screens, though.

[dom0]

Actually it's more like 50:50 between improved energy density in batteries and "other stuff" - most importantly "better" CPUs and smarter power management in other hard/software.

The battery in the laptop used to write this comment could power most "ultrabooks" (or it's direct successors) for >24 hours (that is, from the claimed battery life of the newer devices)

[threeseed]

> if they thought rationally,

Because buying something because it looks/feels good is irrational.

Makes sense.

[CaptSpify]

Is that true? The way I see phones being sold aren't because people are choosing one feature over another, it's they have to live with the best "set of features". Usually this means they are stuck choosing the less-terrible phone, rather than a phone that they actually want.

[kbutler]

> Your personal needs are vastly different from the actual market; otherwise what you desire would be more aligned with what manufacturers are making.

An economist sees a $100 bill on the ground, but refuses to pick it up because if it were real, someone else would have already taken it.

[geofft]

Kind of. Manufacturers make what the market wants, weighted by price. It's harder to justify a high margin on a smaller phone. A phone without a replaceable battery, or one that gets damaged more easily, brings in revenue.