[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.