Feature Phone

The communication has always been fundamental to human progress and has changed drastically from big cumbersome but elegant plain old telephone sets to modern flashy handsets.

The mobile telephony with animal spirited innovations has added rocket pace to journey of communication, so much so that it has subsumed lot of contemporary devices in its laps like  Radio, Analog Cameras, Walkman, Tape recorder, Light Torches even the televisions and desktop screens are being at the threat with mobiles being viewed as first interface devices for millions for internet with advancement of networking  technology from 2G, 3G, 4G etc.

Now, we are in stage of evolution that mobiles have become basic need of everyone for all types of our daily works and mobile telephony penetration seen as index of development. In the after world of Corona pandemic, the online life without mobiles is hard to imagine.

With so many mobile set options available in market and launch of new models every other day and flash sales, choosing the right one for ones need and budget can sometime become nightmare. So let me try to offer some help, though not a tech geek, based on personal experience and collected information, i thought to share few details of mobile sets that one must give thought before finalizing the set in ones hand.

So we start by talking little about mobile phones essentials.

The mobiles can be broadly classified as Feature Phone & Smart Phone based on their features and capabilities. We shall talk both one by one.

FeaturePhone:

These are simple mobile sets with simple features for good old voice communication. They are recognized by their traditional keypad with small screen and light weight in their design. The sets comes with standard features like FM radio, Light torch, Simple Camera.

With voice calling and text messaging as the key services, these sets having simplicity in handling are generally very good for senior citizens, students or working blue collar workers with their long battery backup, so you don’t need to run for charging the sets all the time. And also these are good sets to feel nostalgic about monotonic ring tones and snake ladder games.

SmartPhones:

These are mobile phone which are capable of performing lot of complicated work on the move like laptops but some limitation more like mini computers. With the advance of fabrication technology and ecosystem of apps for each purpose, the smart phone has become a way of life.

The features of smart phones are getting updates on hourly and daily basis, its very difficult to catch hold of innovations but still if we don’t embrace the changes then there is real danger of being left out of the trend. So its wise to go little details of major part of smart phones, so that you may pick the set of your choice and need as every thing comes at price tag attached.

Network-2G, 3G, 4G & coming 5G:

A key part of any mobile phone specification is its operating frequency bands. 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G and coming 5G represent the five generations of mobile networks where G stands for ‘Generation’ and the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 represent the generation number. Right from 2G to 5G , the evolution offers faster & higher data transfer speeds and greater capacity allowing many more devices to be connected at the same time.

Processor:

Today’s smartphones can do more than just call or message. They are equipped with features like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC, USB connectivity, accelerometer, gyro sensor, GPS, proximity sensor and over the top plethora of apps. Every action you perform on your smartphone goes straight to the processor. You can compare it to the brain of the human body.

One can say that the ultimate prize in the smartphone arms race is still Processor speed. You would notice when apps lag or when swiping takes an eternity. The speed at which a processor processes a certain action depends on a number of factors like the number of processor cores, the clock speed is another important aspect.  A processor with a 1-Gigahertz (GHz) clock speed can process 1 billion instructions per second. The general rule is that higher clock speeds make for faster phones. The number of cores ensures actions are always processed on time.  So next time, don’t just look at the amount of cores, but also at the clock speed.

Operating system:

A operating system is most important software that helps to run other application software on mobile devices. It is the same kind of software as the famous computer operating systems like Linux and Windows, but they are light and simple to some extent, as it combines the beauty of computer and mobility of hand use devices.

Most popular mobile operating systems include Apple iOS (OS 1, 2, 3….14) and Google Android ( Cupcake, Donut, Eclair…Nougat, Oreo, Pie). With increasing processor capacity, having latest OS is always better but it comes with cost. Also deciding OS for your phone, do look for apps availability, both iOS and Android platforms are fairly similar with millions apps in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store respectively.

Battery:

Your smartphone could have a shrink-ray or turn lead into gold and it would still be useless without energy. There are ways to boost the battery life of your gadget, but at the end of the day a larger battery is going to last you longer. Now days in modern cell phones there are only two types of batteries used Lithium Polymer and Lithium Ion. Li-Poly are ultra-lightweight, do not suffer from memory effect, on the other side Lithium Ion cell phone batteries are expensive, but they have higher energy density and better overheating performance compared to Li-Polymer.

Few key common features: Battery Capacity, Battery Life and Battery Size.

A common way to measure battery capacity is through mAH an abbreviation for “milliampere hour,”. Higher the mAH, the higher the mileage of your smart phone.

Another feature that distinguishes different mobile batteries is its usage part – replaceable and non-replaceable.

Also don’t forget about good mobile charger (with ports USB-C, Micro-USB or wireless ) that are durable and perform well in every environment conditions as it is charger which provides the traction energy to batteries because in our price-sensitive market, chargers often receive low priority and get the “after-thought” status. Chargers are commonly identified by their charging speed.

Display:

Smartphones are as much about enjoying media as they are about communicating. You watch movies, play games and view photos on your mobile screen and you want the crispest display around. There are many display types used in smartphones: LCD, OLED, AMOLED, Super AMOLED, TFT, IPS, TFT-LCD. Each having their own specialties and short comings, so much for technicalities. Normal features that should come to user mind while comparing different displays are display size (in inches from 4.7 to 6.5), viewing angles and outdoor readability, color reproduction, refresh rate and of course resolution or pixels per inch (ppi) figure, which is referred to as pixel density (HD, Full HD, QHD/2K, 4K/Ultra HD). All comes with pinch of salt i.e concerns about power, as larger, higher-resolution displays demand evermore battery sizes.

Of course in last comes Gorilla Glass, a special strong glass shield with exceptional damage resistance that helps protect mobile displays from scratches, drops and bumps of everyday use as replacing a damaged display really cost a lot dear.

RAM:

RAM which stands for random access memory is short term storage that hold all data of your phone like apps, photos, videos, and music while running or when it’s not using it, but might in the near future and it helps your smartphone perform and feel fast. But having more RAM inside in our phone, only allows for more apps to run in the background or call it multitasking. The real performance also depend upon how efficiently the phone controls its own processors and tightly controls its software. So don’t always fall for mobile giants gimmicks for bigger RAM.

Storage:

Most smartphones come with anywhere between 16 and 32 gigabytes of in built storage, high-end models featuring 256GB or 512GB.  The operating system of phones generally takes up about 4GB to 8GB of storage and need to factor about the same for all your apps. Videos and photos take up a lot of storage space. But if you like taking a lot of photos and videos then you should consider bigger storage or check if your phone has expandable storage, so that you may buy a microSD card for extra inserted external storage into your phone.

But in the end, Extra space is a nice luxury, these days you’ll be saving most of your media in the cloud and portable hard disk can also be better & safer options.

Camera:

You don’t have to be a pro photographer to see the difference between modern phone cameras and the ones on your old flip-phone. A great camera is important for more than just great photos. You can use your camera for some surprising other things, like visual search.

It allows you adjust or control every parameter of you shot. But believe me most of features like Resolution, White balance, Shutter speed, Focus, ISO, Photography Modes are never fully understood by common folks like us and adjusting any is daunting task  but lot of information over net is available  which can be perused by photography enthusiast to explore their mobile cameras. For mortals like us can look for features like Camera Lens, Zoom, Megapixels, Camera Flash, Smart Image Processing, High quality Videos.

Safety features: