Which you could also do by simply making the device a little thicker and have a battery run the entire width of the device. Point is past a certain point, thinness becomes more of a drawback than a benefit, especially given the trade-offs involved.

You might want that trade off, but consumers in general have been leaning towards thinner and lighter for years. Just look around at complaints about the thickness of early android watches being too big and chunky. Or the huge popularity when the first MacBook Air came out.

Given the option between thicker w/ a bit more battery life or thinner and lighter, consumers are choosing thinner and lighter.

Of course engineering is always a trade off, and it is possible to go too far in one direction. But it's not all or nothing, Apple is the one feeding us that false dichotomy.

> ...consumers in general have been leaning towards thinner and lighter for years.

> ...consumers are choosing thinner and lighter.

A) I'm guessing actually lighter more than thinner.

B) Are consumers really clamouring all that intensely for "Thinner! Thinner!", or is that a) because that's all that's offered, and b) the relentless hype from manufacturers -- above all, bendy phone maker Apple -- amplified by rarely-critical media?

B. Definitely B. I’d happily choose a phone that’s chonkier if it was an option.

Battery is a big part of mobile devices of all kind, but it's not “mostly battery” for most of those.

For instance, in a iPhone 11, the battery occupies less than half of the surface of the phone[1]. On a Macbook pro, it's about the same.[2] [1] see this ifixit video if you want to see it by yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Feyqwf3cYtw&t=161s

[2] https://guide-images.cdn.ifixit.com/igi/noPvQ2CLs1jptX2p.hug... You can see that the motherboard is much, much bigger than a smartphone.

Looking at the picture from [2]. it looks like the motherboard is really not much much bigger than a smartphone. There's a lot of space dedicated to ventilation (note the two large fans and the black cooling ducts under the hand in the picture. Some fraction of that motherboard is also the solid state storage. The picture here of the internals of an iPhone 11 https://www.zdnet.com/article/heres-whats-inside-your-new-ip... (I don't do videos) sure looks like it's mostly battery. If I discount the empty space, the insides are more battery than not battery.