The RAZR was probably a point of no return. When Motorola was able to come out with the slim clamshell smartphone, other manufacturers jumped on the bandwagon, with good reason. Over 50 million RAZRs have been sold, and you can't blame other companies for trying to copy success.

Anyways, expect the my-phone's-thinner-than-yours wars to continue. According to Brighthand, LG.Philips LCD has developed the "world's slimmest thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD)," unveiling it during the recently concluded SID Mobile Displays convention. The entire display unit is only 1.3 millimeters thick, definitely slimmer than the usual 1.9 to 2.9 mm.

So Why is This Important? Even 0.6 (or 1.6) mm is a huge improvement, not only for thin smartphones, but for other smartphones and PDAs as well. For as the screen needs lesser space to function, engineers will have more space to play with. In other words, even devices that don't try to be the thinnest will benefit, since a thinner screen will allow manufacturers to cram even more functionality into a gadget. Or, they can simply concentrate on using the additional space to improve existing features.

Maybe this represents another step towards the ultimate gadget, a device that does everything so well that calling it a smartphone or PDA would be pointless?