How to Select Best Smartphone

Smartphones have become an intimate part of our lives. To stay in touch with our family and friends, smartphones play a pivotal role in connecting the relations. Not only for maintaining contacts but also for recreations, games, photography, and much more, smartphones have become part and parcel of our lives. With the ever increasing demands for smartphones, many manufacturing firms are regularly releasing mobiles with new features, hardware, software and advanced technology.

There will be an obvious confusion amongst users to select the best smartphone which will meet their expectations. This guide will help you to select the best smartphone and a broad outline regarding the points that should be considered before you buy a smartphone.





DISPLAY

If you are an avid multimedia user, you should select a mobile that has better and larger displays. Larger displays have become a must be a feature in present day smartphones. But note that larger displays don’t mean a better display. The other factors which you should consider in a display are the resolution capacity, pixels per inch, built quality (OLED, IPS LCD, AMOLED, QHD) and the gorilla glass protection. The larger the resolution, better the quality of the image or video. An HD display doesn’t mean that it has a better display as well. It’s the pixels that decide the outcome of the quality of the media. A 1280 X 720-pixel resolution is called as an HD display. When compared to higher resolutions such as 2880 X 1440 pixels will have a brighter and better display. Some phones support the highest resolution available in smartphones, 4K also called Ultra HD.

The pixels per inch is what determines the viewing experience. More pixels per inch better the resolution. A 5.5-inch mobile screen with HD display (1280 X 720) and nearly 267 pixels isn’t a great display. Direct sunlight viewing can be very difficult with such low resolutions. I would suggest opting for a phone which has a minimum of 400 + pixels per inch resolution.

The built quality of the screen is the most important factor for the overall viewing experience. But there is no rule of thumb that any particular display is superior or inferior to others. An AMOLED display is brighter and sharper but it tends to over saturate the colors. While IPS LCD displays don’t over saturate, their viewing angles are not as good as AMOLED’s. Quad HD (QHD) displays are more advanced screen display technology which will have good viewing angles and natural color reproduction. Apple devices have their own display technology called as Retina Display. Though Retina display has lower pixels per inch compared to other Android devices having AMOLED or QHD screens, the color reproduction, brightness, and viewing angles are as good as others, sometimes superior as well.

Gorilla glass is the extra protective layer over the display screen of a smartphone which protects from scratches and physical damage.

PROCESSOR

The processor is the Achilles' heel for many smartphones. There are plenty of processors out there and the popularly known processors are Snapdragon, Exynos, Kirin, Helio, and MediaTek. Don’t get fooled by the number of cores in a processor. It doesn’t imply that an octa core processor will out perform a quad core processor. The speed of the processor depends on the size of the chipset on each core. Though this understanding requires a little technical knowledge, you must understand that higher number of cores isn’t essentially a faster processor. For example, an octa core Kirin processor has out performed an octa core Helio or MediaTek processor. Similarly, a quad core Snapdragon processor will perform faster than an octa core MediaTek processor. In layman’s terms, the size of individual chipset makes the processor more efficient and powerful.

For example, Snapdragon 820 has 14-nanometer chip size while Snapdragon 835 has 10-nanometer size. The lesser the size the greater is the performance. Also, low sized chipsets will occupy lesser space which will help in incorporating bigger batteries and larger displays. In brief, never believe that the number of cores will decide the speed of the processor. It will depend on several factors such as the material used (example: Silicon), the size of the chipset (16 nm,14 nm, 10nm), the operating system of the device. Apple devices have their own Fusion chipsets which have 16 nm size. Also, note that benchmark scores tested with certain apps does not decide the speed factor, the user experience is the final verdict.

There certain phones in the market which have an additional processor called 'coprocessor'. This will help the main processor of the device to handle day to day tasks. It doesn't mean that having a coprocessor will speed up the device, it only helps the device not to lag and saves battery. Since for every task, whether you watch a video or simply use your texting app, the main processor need to fire up. This consumes a high amount of energy even for simple tasks. To minimise this, a coprocessor will be handy.

RAM

After the processor, the most important piece of hardware that decides the speed of the device is the RAM. A DDR-4 RAM has higher Speed than DDR-3. But the difference is often negligible. These days 4 GB RAM devices have become common and most phones do come with a 4 GB DDR-3 RAM. There are certain devices which come with 6 GB and 8 GB RAM’s as well. But there is no rule that these phones have faster handling capacity than 4 GB RAM. In fact, there is a debate going on which most of the tech geeks argue that a mobile phone doesn’t require more than 4 gigs of RAM as for now or for coming few years. They also state that the performance difference very minute compared to devices with higher RAM.

So select a mobile which has a minimum of 4 GB of RAM. It doesn’t matter whether it is DDR-3 or DDR-4 RAM as the difference in speed or performance isn’t much.


NOTE: THE IMPACT OF PROCESSOR SIZE AND TYPE OF RAM ON BATTERY CONSUMPTION, POWER USAGE VARIES AND IS DISCUSSED IN FURTHER SESSIONS.


MEMORY

I would personally choose a mobile which has expandable memory option. Most devices come with micro sd card slot with which you can expand the memory. Apple devices don’t have this option and you have to use the bigger version of the mobile to get more memory space. If you are a great multimedia user, do extensive photography, watch a lot of videos on your mobile phone, I would recommend getting a smartphone that has expandable memory card slot.

A part of device’s internal memory is used for the phone’s base operating system and you don’t have 100% usability of your phone’s internal memory. This becomes very painful when you have a 16 GB of a device with no memory card option. In these devices, nearly 3 GB is used by phone’s operating system and when you install few apps and load a couple of movies, you are done. No further space available. I would recommend you to get a mobile with a minimum of 64 gigs of internal space along with expandable memory card slot.


BATTERY

Battery capacity is another important factor that you should consider before you buy a new smartphone. Although some smartphones perform well with low capacity batteries, some under perform even on bigger batteries. The battery consumption depends on the processor, RAM, Operating system, and the display. The cumulative effect of all these factors will deplete the juice of the battery.

Higher end processors and RAM’s (DDR-4) have a lesser impact on power and voltage consumption. Nowadays multi core processors are designed in such a way that higher cores fire up when you use graphic rich media or games while lower core processors handle day to day tasks that do not require much power. Ensure that you have a minimum of 3000 mAh battery capacity before you buy the phone.


Apple devices have lesser battery capacities compared to its Android rivals. But this does not mean that Apple phones discharge very quickly. As I said, the power consumption is a multi factorial outcome and Apple has designed its software and hardware such that it doesn’t require massive battery capacities.


CAMERA

The major myth in camera performance is ‘more pixels, better the quality of the image’. Well, it is not entirely true. Higher megapixel camera means you can take a larger image which does not get pixelated when you zoom or crop it. The other two major factors you need to consider while considering a smartphone camera is the sensor size and aperture length/size.

The larger sensor size means it allows more light onto the lens of the camera with which you can get a higher detail of an image or a picture. But this is the point where megapixel factor affects. Smaller megapixel camera with larger aperture size is a complete mismatch. It’s like you are letting more people into a smaller room. So an optimal pixel camera with decent sensor size will make a decent picture or video. The sensor size will also affect the low light photography. Larger sensors tend to perform well in low light conditions.

Similarly, the aperture plays a vital role in the quality of the images. Many of you have heard, that term aperture length as f/2.2, f/2, f/1.8 etc. For beginners, I will keep it simple. The lower the denominator in the fraction shown while describing the aperture length the larger is the size of the aperture. In this case, f/1.8 aperture is wider than f/2.2 and it allows more light onto the sensor of the camera which can capture much detail.

Image Credit: TechWalls

The final factor that affects the quality of the images or videos is the Image processing technology. Smartphones which support Optical Image Stabilization reproduce the greater quality of images. The image processing software is also the key factor which decides the camera performance. Some smartphones have dedicated chip for processing images.

Also, remember about front-facing cameras. Though they will not be as good as the rear camera, they should have minimum pixel count, aperture and sensor size. Some manufacturing firms are marketing their products with a higher pixel front facing camera than the rear camera for selfie lovers. As I stated above, more megapixel does not decide the quality of the image.

Recently, smartphones are released with dual cameras. These cameras perform better than single cameras (considering similar statistics for a single and dual camera). The dual camera technology works in a most sophisticated way. Both cameras take two different images and merge them into a single image for a better image.


OPERATING SYSTEM

We all know the two major rivals in the smartphone market are Android and iOS. The selection of operating system depends purely on personal choice. Some like Android while some like Apple’s iOS. Both have their pros and cons. Android is an open source operating system and has a wide range of user functionalities when compared to iOS. You can tweak the Google’s Android OS according to your will if you have some technical knowledge (rooting and unlocking bootloader). While Apple iOS is known for its simplicity and is a sandboxed operating system which is quite difficult to break. This means your phone does not get infected by malware very easily. Since Android OS runs on a Linux kernel, you have that flexibility to install plenty of third party apps which is not possible in iOS. But the quality and quantity of apps available in Apple’s App Store are way superior to Google Play Store. Apple also releases software updates regularly and aggressively patches the security vulnerabilities.

Android OS has a superior functionality called user interface. You can have Android firmware over a custom user interface which is developed by mobile manufacturers. Some of the popular user interfaces include HTC Sense UI, Samsung TouchWiz, MIUI etc.

It all depends on personal choice. You can choose either of them. Since there is limited support for apps and a lesser number of devices for Windows operating system, am not discussing Windows mobiles.


BUDGET

Of all the factors, your budget is the ultimate point which will decide what phone you own. There are some pretty decent budget phones that have excellent top notch features. Do a research before you buy a smartphone. Not every smartphone is 100% perfect. Each mobile has its own flaws and you can’t get all your desired features in a single phone. Analyze your need, for what you are buying a smartphone or what does your daily activity expect to have certain features in a smartphone. If you are a heavy mobile gamer, go for a phone that has higher end processor, more space, more RAM and bigger battery capacity. If you are a multimedia user go for a phone that has bigger and brighter display with decent battery capacity.

Buy a smartphone that meets your daily needs. You cannot expect a smartphone that is completely flawless. You need to sacrifice something to get other things.


MISCELLANEOUS

Few minor factors you need to consider before you buy a smartphone are build quality, technical support, water and dust resistance, connectivity support (VoLTE, LTE, Wi-Fi 820, Bluetooth 5), the weight of the device, external speaker sound quality, fast charging support and wireless battery charging support.

A premium built quality need not be a powerful phone and vice versa. If you are concerned about the aesthetic appearance of your device over the performance, consider buying such phone that doesn’t have greater performance values. These days, water and dust resistance is a must have feature. It is better to have that feature incorporated in your device. The external speakers must be positioned well. Upper facing speakers tend to be loud and audible than back facing speakers. If your device has back facing speakers, they may get blocked by your hands when you hold the device in landscape mode or when you place the device in resting position on a table.

Have a note about the sensors that are available. Finger print sensor has become common in many smartphones and it adds extra security. Some phones come with advanced sensors for security such as Iris Scanner. There are certain other sensors which will monitor your heart rate, the distance you walk, calories you burn while you walk or jog, ambient light sensors, and much more. If you want all these sensors incorporated in your device, you need to pay extra bucks.

While all these are minor factors, they also affect the user experience. Select accordingly.

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