The next big thing in traditional smartphone design will be a significant reduction in thickness, something we’ve already witnessed with foldable devices. It’s happening next year, with the iPhone 17 Air being the ultra-thin phone that keeps appearing in leaks and rumors.
But we won’t have to wait until September to see an ultra-thin phone in action. Samsung has probably heard the rumors, too. Unsurprisingly, a Galaxy S25 Slim is coming. The thinner Galaxy S25 flavor will be unveiled at Unpacked if recent rumors are accurate. But it might not hit stores until the second quarter of 2025.
By the time the iPhone 17 Air actually launches, Samsung will be able to brag that it was the first to launch an ultra-thin, non-foldable flagship phone. Of course, this is the same company that could not make an ultra-thin foldable until this fall.
That said, the Galaxy S25 Slim might turn out to have a massive advantage over the iPhone 17 Air, one that some buyers might appreciate. The ultra-thin phone might feature a multi-lens camera, while the iPhone 17 Air is said to have just a single rear-facing lens.
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I’ve said more than once that I’m ready to accept the downsides of owning an iPhone 17 Air, even if that means losing the ultra-wide angle lens in the process. I’m happy with a single-cam iPhone as long as it’s thin and has a large display.
Apple might have to ditch extra cameras to reduce the camera module thickness. Or it might want to remove a camera from the module to make room for the battery.
On the other hand, Samsung appears to stick with a triple-lens camera for the Galaxy S25 Slim. Citing information from Meritz Securities, leaker Jukanlosreve says that Samsung will use ALoP technology on the Galaxy S25 Slim to reduce the size of the camera bump.
The leaker says the camera tech is “confirmed” and will be applied exclusively to the Galaxy S25 Slim model. Before the leaker’s remarks, we already had speculations that Samsung’s ALoP camera tech would be used in the ultra-thin Galaxy S25 Slim because it’s the kind of tech that would help smartphone vendors reduce the size of the camera bump.
What is ALoP, exactly? It’s an acronym for All Lenses on Prism camera technology, which Samsung announced in mid-November. ALoP tech allows Samsung to create thinner phones by thinning the zoom cameras inside a camera module.
The image above shows what a periscope camera would look like inside current phones. The lenses are all placed vertically relative to the plane of the phone. This forces smartphone vendors to increase the phone thickness to accommodate the zoom camera.
The ALoP technology lets Samsung reposition the zoom camera’s lenses in a way that doesn’t impact the phone’s thickness similarly. As you can see in the following image, the lenses are stacked on top of each other horizontally, in the same plane as the phone’s body. The prism and sensor are both slightly shifted in this arrangement.
Samsung also offered the following side-by-side image that shows the difference in size between a current folded zoom lens (periscope camera) and an ALoP lens.
Finally, the following comparison shows what ALoP cameras will do for smartphone design. The camera module is significantly smaller on the right, and the zoom camera looks better, featuring a circular lens rather than a rectangular one.
If the leaker’s claim above is accurate and Samsung plans to use a periscope zoom lens inside the Galaxy S25 Slim, the phone will probably feature three cameras. If the iPhone 17 Air sticks with just one camera on the back, let’s just say the bad Samsung anti-Apple commercial will write itself.
It’ll be interesting to see whether Samsung uses the same ALoP camera tech inside other flagship phones, including this year’s upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 7.
