contributed by Matthias Abdilla Castillo, House 10B
In recent years, smartphone technology has been developing drastically. Innovation towards a better and more user – friendly future has always been on the minds of top smartphone companies such as Huawei, Samsung, Xiaomi and Apple. In the last quarter of 2017, I decided to make smartphone innovation a hobby for me by understanding what makes a smartphone and what techniques Smartphone Industry Leaders are using in order to provide the end – user with a cutting- edge experience of the future.
When I first started following smartphone trends, I realized that a common trend was the screen. People are always wanting bigger screens and no bezels around the sides. A bezel is a term used to describe the frame of the phone which is not screen. They are usually found at the top and bottom of the smartphone. Although this might be a good idea, I believe that overdoing it will cause people to crack their screens more easily and that will eventually lead to higher costs for screen repairs or even replacing your smartphone more often than usual.
Another important factor that people always search before investing in their new smartphone is the camera or cameras nowadays. Innovation in the smartphone industry is moving so rapidly that smartphone cameras from 2 years ago never competed with professional cameras such as DSLRs but the same cannot be said nowadays. This is because smartphone makers have been adding different cameras with different focal lengths to do different tasks such as a wide-angle camera or a telephoto one capable of zooming without sacrificing quality. The amount of megapixels has also been increasing to provide images with higher quality which might also be beneficial for people who would want to print their images in A3 sizes. One factor that differentiates smartphone cameras from professional cameras is the ability to shoot clear images in low-light scenarios. This has also been improved by the addition of specialized software within the smartphone CPU for brighter and clearer images.
Although I love smartphones and how they operate, I am still aware of their disadvantages such as the price and others that many people fall for. These are obviously spending a large amount of time checking social media instead of doing something more useful for yourself. I believe that this has been a major disadvantage in the last couple of years since people are finding ways to use their devices incorrectly by spending large amounts of time staring at screens which are certainly not healthy for their eyes. I strongly suggest that people start using their devices to do more appropriate things such as learning from the web and gaining more general knowledge from things that might eventually interest them.
