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You told us: This is your favorite material for the back of a smartphone
June 17, 2025
Thesmartphoneworld is no longer just a mire of plastic, metal, and glass. Manufacturers are now offering devices’ rear plates in a plethora of materials from ceramic to glasstic. But which do users prefer?
We asked this very question in arecent poll, and the results are remarkable. Read on for the details!
What’s your favorite material for the back of a smartphone?
We saw over 4,000 votes on this poll published on August 6, and the results are surprisingly close, too.
The top three choices all garnered more than 20% of the vote each, with metal (26.2%) outweighing glass (21.6%) and plastic (20%) in popularity. Overall, this trio accounted for more than two-thirds of the total vote, which justifies smartphone makers’ reliance on these materials.
They weren’t the only choices available, though. Of the remaining options, ceramic garnered 12.6% of the votes cast, outperforming glasstic (9.7%) and vegan leather/pleather (7.2%).
Althoughglassticfeatures on someSamsungdevices, it’s not a widely used material across the industry. Ceramic too finds favor withXiaomiandHuaweiflagships, but it’s pricey and comes with its own set of negatives. Vegan leather and alternatives are usually reserved for special edition devices unless you still carry an LG G4 around.
But what about the “other” option? Well, many readers (3.2%) weighed in with their own materials in the comments. Several anecdotes suggest that “rubberized” plastic is a crowd favorite, usually featuring on rugged devices. Motorola’s experiment with kevlar also received mention, while carbon fiber and wood seem to be outliers, too. Finally, other readers suggest they simply don’t care what their phone is made of, as they almost always place them in a case after purchase. Peruse more user views below.
Your comments
That’s it for this poll. Thanks for your votes and comments. If you have any further notes about your favorite phone material or the poll results, be sure to drop them down below.
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