New Mobile Phone – In our last article, we talked about the importance of hardware and software, how it makes a difference when it comes to choosing a phone. Let’s do a further deep dive on the other important aspects while choosing a smartphone.
Screen – LED vs. LCD
The main reason why we haven’t listed a long list of screen type names such as AMOLED, QLED or OLED in the title is that almost all the screens fall into the above two categories. All the other screen types that you hear about are subcategories of these two categories. The display of the phone is the primary way we interact with the phone. The latest flagships are pushing the boundaries concerning screen resolution with 2k screens being the norm. There was even a phone with a 4k screen which doesn’t make sense to us. Without going into the minute and specific details, we would like to point out a few pros and cons.
Most widely used screens LED with most of the manufactures going for OLED variant. Few of the main advantages are the blacks are more vibrant and they are easy on the eyes as well. Furthermore, individual pixels on the screen can be lit up without the need to wake up the whole screen, and that results in better battery life. Samsung has the best displays on the market, and they even supplied Apple for their flagship iPhone X phones. One of the cons for this particular type of screen is that it’s expensive, but it’s always worth the money spent. We are not going to talk much about the LCD screens because most of the phone makers have ditching LCD for LED displays. Check out this video which explains and goes into details about the differences between different displays.
Camera – Megapixel is not the only thing that’s important
Gone are the days when megapixel was the only thing that mattered in a smartphone camera. These days phone cameras have become so good that they are single-handedly making the point-and-shoot camera obsolete. But most of the general public still think that higher the megapixels better the camera. If you’re not in hurry and if you can wait, before purchasing a new phone it’s always better to wait for the reviews. One of the main things to look for in a mobile camera is its low light performance. Most of the photos that we click our indoors and too much reliance on a smartphone camera flash wouldn’t make clicking pictures slow.
While it used to be true that if you needed the best camera performance, you had to spend a premium for the device. However lately, even the budget options are looking great photos. One of the best examples is the Oneplus 5 and 5T. These two phones punch above their weight. That might not exactly be cheap, but they’re not costly than the other flagship phones. According to many reviews over the last few months, there are only two phones on either side which take the tag of the best smartphone camera. On Android, it’s the Pixel series, and on iOS it’s the iPhone X. There are a few technical things which we need to go over and we will do that in a later post.
Battery – Bigger the Better
In one of our previous blogs, we have talked about how to save battery. Battery technology hasn’t changed a lot all the past couple of years. Except for Note 7’s incident, battery-related news has been pretty quiet. The rule of thumb is that you always go for the bigger battery capacity. Irrespective of what the smartphone makers claim, software optimization can only prolong your battery for a specified period. Most phones with a battery capacity of 4000mAH and more tend to last longer. Samsung phone with their history of Note 7 behind them, tend to keep the battery capacity to a minimum when compared to the rest of the pack. However, their heavily customized skin of Android seems to be working at the moment. We are not contradicting ourselves because most of the Samsung phones tend to slow down within the first six months. When you spend the amount of money that you do on a flagship smartphone, you would want to use it for at least a couple of years.
Final Thoughts:
There are a few miscellaneous things which add more value. Stuff like Water resistance, MicroSD card slot, Dual Sim option, Wireless Charging, etc. are some features which people love to have. But for a majority of users, they are not a make or break functionality on the phone. We would like to give you some recommendations on different price points, but you already have most of the information online. In the next post, we will talk about how to set up a new phone and things to keep in mind while switching. If you have any more thoughts or questions feel free to write in the comment section below.
Image Credit: http://www.coolhunting.com/tech/nextbit-robin-kickstarter-cloud-android-new-mobile-phone
