Over the last few years, our smartphones have become more and more powerful. The small devices that we are able to fit into our pockets are perfectly capable of browsing the Internet whenever we see fit, or carrying on a conversation with someone who may be on a computer and not on another smartphone at all. The limits are pretty much endless with these devices, and as we look into the future I’m wondering which trends are going to get picked up, and which ones will be left in the dust. With the recent release of the Sony Ericsson XPERIA Play, I’m curious about more “dedicated” devices, and if we’ll be seeing more of those in the future.

In today’s market, it’s not surprising to see a newly released device with a ton of outstanding features tagging along for the ride. We expect these things now, and so manufacturers have to find a way to make their devices stand out amongst the crowd. And what better way to do that then to have one killer feature, the one thing that pulls the attention of would-be buyers from another device to the one in question. If you can have one feature that stands out, and you can still meet (or beat) the majority of other features on those other handsets, then you’ve got yourself a potential winner.

For the XPERIA Play, that one outstanding feature is the slide-out physical gamepad the device boasts. It’s been called the “PSP Phone,” and rightfully so, as it’s able to be called a gaming device and a phone in the same breath. But, what it really is is a “PlayStation Certified” device, which means that we can definitely expect more handsets like this from Sony Ericsson in the future. How similar they will be to the Play remains to be seen, but I doubt this will be the last dedicated gaming handset we see from the company.

And then I got to thinking about other features of a smartphone that could be “pulled” from the other features, and showcased more so than any other. We’ve seen manufacturers try to make the display that one feature, whether it be size or resolution or color clarity, but we’ve seen how pretty much every other manufacturer out there can easily catch up to that technology and feature set pretty quickly. We’ve got displays with incredible clarity and color now from the likes of Apple, Samsung, Motorola, and even LG has gotten into the game.

So what’s next? I think the most obvious feature is the camera. And I think this ties in really well with the possibility that HTC is creating a phone with a 16MP camera on the back. We’ve already talked about how a camera of that sort could be called a camera first and a phone second, but I think if we look beyond that just a bit, we can start to see a trend that I think manufacturers are going to start latching onto. In today’s market, where pretty much every high-end device that launches is expected to have a high definition display and a 1GHz (or faster) processor under the hood, these manufacturers need to find a way to differentiate themselves. And while software is one way to do it, there has to be more.

So, I think the camera is one way to make that happen. While we know that the cameras in our smartphones are top-notch (in some devices) in their own right, they don’t compare to the dedicated shooters out there. So, even if HTC does create that 16MP Windows Phone 7 device, will it be enough to capture the attention of a photographer? Perhaps a dedicated device, like a dedicated “camera phone” would, and that right there is enough to start stringing in more customers. Anyone who wants to be able to take more photos with their phone, but not have to worry about the quality of it.

And then there’s the fact that we all love front-facing cameras now, too. If you’ve got a 16MP camera on the back, and then another powerful shooter on the front, that’s just one way you can make your new handset stand out amongst the growing crowd.

What do you think of the possibility of seeing more dedicated devices? Which features on our current generation smartphones do you think could be used to make a dedicated device to attract a specific group? Let me know what you think in the comments below.