Have you ever looked at a smartphone’s list of specs? What am I talking about? Of course you have! So you already know that each and every smartphone has a ton of different features to offer. But when it comes time to actually go shopping for a new smartphone of your own, among all of those specs and features there are probably ones that you care about more than others. Maybe you need to have top notch processing speed, the best voice activation system, or perhaps a bigger/smaller screen.
What do you look for in a smartphone?
For me, I think the first thing I always look at is the camera. It’s not just about the megapixels anymore, it’s also about the sheer quality of the pictures that the camera can take. I mentioned that I’ve been using a BlackBerry Q10 recently, and while the phone itself isn’t too shabby, I find that its 8-megapixel camera isn’t exactly the best camera I’ve ever used. In fact (and some of you think I’m crazy because of this) I still think that the HTC One (both the M7 and the M8) has taken some of the best smartphone pictures to date despite its 4-megapixel camera. Some of you might be able to recall that I used a Galaxy S4 once upon a time before ultimately switching to the M7, and even between those two cameras (13-megapixel on the S4, 4-megapixel “UltraPixel” on the One) I still preferred the performance and quality of the One’s photos over the Galaxy S4, especially in low light situations.
When you have kids, a good camera is one of those things a parent always wants to have on hand. Fortunately, gone are the days where cell phone and camera needs to be two separate devices; smartphone cameras have become so advanced that a lot of people find that they don’t necessarily need to carry around two separate devices anymore - many a smartphone camera these days can do the job just as well. Also, I find that using a smartphone camera is far more convenient for being able to quickly snap those photos of kids in action. A lot of great shots are very “in the moment” and don’t necessary wait for me to get out my digital camera, wait for it to turn on, and so forth.
There’s one other thing that I find to be extremely important in a smartphone to me, and that is a good amount of storage. It’s funny to think how just a few years ago I was amazed at 8GB of memory in a smartphone. Then 8GB wasn’t enough, and I had to have at least 16GB of memory. Now 16GB isn’t enough, and I need at least 32GB. Perferrably, I want a phone with the option of expanding internal memory, because I don’t know how long my satisfaction with 32GB will last. If the phone I have my eye on doesn’t have expandable storage, it has to at least have 32GB of storage. 16GB doesn’t cut it for me anymore (which was one of my biggest problems with the iPhone 6 - I still don’t get why they couldn’t bump up the cheapest iPhone to 32GB given that the next two allotments are 64GB and 128GB). I have a fairly large music library and although I tend to use Spotify most of the time, I still like to keep the music I actually own in my phone as well. My need for more storage also circles back to parenting once more - photos and videos take up a lot of memory as well, especially when you have a good camera!
Overall, I think those are the two most important aspects of a smartphone for me. I’ve become less picky about processing power given that some platforms (such as Windows Phone) don’t necessarily need the same amount of horsepower that an Android device would need in order to make it run smoothly.
Enough about me, let’s hear it from you, dear reader! When it comes to your smartphones, what are the most important features that you must have? Let us know in the comments below!
Images via Run Techno, Wired
