Black and Chrome: the standard for a lot of devices now?

The other day I had a bunch of devices on my desk, and in between posts and the like, I glanced across at them – at which point I realised that almost all of them have the same exterior treatment in terms of colour, highlights, and styling.

What do I mean? Well if I told you that there was a BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Bold, iPhone 3G, and Panasonic landline DECT phone (check out the pic) together, maybe you’ll spot the similarities? No? How about this then:

- Piano Black Fascia

- Chromed bezel/outer detailing

In fact when I thought about it, there are an increasing number of devices that seem to come from the same finishing school – not necessarily for their exact looks, but for the treatment applied to appeal to the target market. Thinking a bit further, there are obviously a lot of other brands in other industries that try for the same effect – immediately I thought of the Mont Blanc Pen range – which feature the same black/chromed effort.

Of course some of the slight details do vary – looking across the Blackberry range (which seems to extensively feature this black/chrome treatment), it would appear the exact shade of chrome varies a little.

But the point I am slowly getting to is: could this treatment get to a point where it’s so pervasive on handsets, we are going to lose a lot of the individuality? I would guess the initial goal of a black/chromed finish is an understated look for the business/professional market, but it’s very easy for handset manufacturers to carry this across on to multiple other handsets – even for example the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N95-8GB had hints of this look.

What do the readers think? Do you care so much what colour your devices are, what the finish is around the outside of them, what colour/shade the buttons are? Right now all my devices are beginning to look the same at home……!