THE MAKING OF A SUPER-SMARTPHONE
All of you who know me by now, would know that I am a gadget freak and when it comes to phones I just can’t stop myself.
Well over time, and after indulging myself no end, I have come to realize that while ostensibly we may seem to be spoiled for choices when it comes to high end smartphones, what with the proliferation of blackberries, Iphone, HTC’s, Palms etc. and the evolution of operating systems from Microsoft, Symbian, Apple, Google – in reality the choice is very limited.
The reason lies in the fact that it is rare that you come across a smartphone which packs it all….and if it doesn’t then it does not qualify to be a super-smartphone!!! And in that case you end up settling for mediocrity even after shelling out top dollars.
So after a lot of R&D, I thought I will compile a list of the absolute essentials which are required in this day and age to qualify any phone as a smartphone and a smartphone as a SUPER-SMARTPHONE…a sort of eligibility criteria if you will.
So here goes the list:
1. TOUCH SCREEN – In this era, where mere clickable buttons are not enough, the touch screen has become a necessary aspect of any super-smartphone. And to be a true touch screen, it has to support functionality amenable to scrolling, panning and other aspects of your touch rather than being a mere poking surface for use with your stylus.
2. DISPLAY – The display of a super-smartphone has to be high resolution. By high resolution, I mean VGA or WVGA rather than a mere QVGA as found on most smartphone impostors.
3. PUSH HTML EMAIL – The super-smartphone must support push email and that also of true HTML format (as you would view emails on your PC) rather than text variety.
4. ONLINE SYNC – To act as a PDA (Perfect digital assistant) to the savvy user, the super-smartphone needs to have comprehensive OTA (over the air) synchronization abilities, to synchronize not just your email, but also give access to all the emails on your PC, through a remote server, as also keep all your appointments, contacts and tasks up to date without subjecting the user to the hassles of synchronization using wires.
5. HARDWARE KEYBOARD – With all due respect to the fancy soft keyboards found on the touch devices, it is a proven fact that these shall never be a replacement for the hard keyboard. So when you need to churn out long emails while on the move, or make notes in a meeting, a hard qwerty keyboard is a non-negotiable for your phone to truly be a super-smartphone.
6. CAMERA – A high resolution camera (minimum 3 megapixel) is a must to make your device an all rounder.
7. VIDEO RECORDING – The camera should also be capable of video recording and preferably with VGA resolution – to capture those spontaneous ‘youtube-able’ moments.
8. FACEBOOK INTEGRATION – This era of social networking lends additional asks to your super-smartphone. A smartphone which does not integrate with your facebook account, downloading the photos and information of your contacts to your phone as also keeping your facebook addiction satiated, is not capable of being caller super.
9. 3G & VIDEO CALL – Even though India may not yet have 3G across all service providers, it is just around the corner, and in our zeal to have a phone capable of accompanying us into the future (though we may discard it well before that point of time), we must have our smartphone capable of high speed data access (read HSDPA, HSUPA, UMTS, EDGE) as also have a front camera for video call capability to satisfy our voyeuristic instincts.
10. QUAD BAND – For the true global traveller, or just to help you drool on all those listings on the spec sheets, the smartphone needs to be quad band, so that you can relish the thought of its company while you travel anywhere in the world without having to worry about its adaptability to the network in use in such country.
11. A-GPS – mere GPS is no longer enough. Assisted-GPS is a quintessential part of the nevigational abilities of a super-smartphone, after all why waste all those towers which have been put in place – let them also do some multi-tasking.
12. OFFICE – A super-smartphone must also integrate with your office and allow you to access, edit, create word documents, excel spreadsheets, powerpoint presentations from your phone itself so that your better half can have the pleasure and pain of having you all to herself yet agonizing over your MS Office antics on the PDA.
13. MULTIMEDIA – For all the times that you wish to show off the phone to the women (or kids) or just spend some private ‘alone’ time with the phone – the phone has to be capable of multimedia playback across all formats, i.e. audio – mp3, wma, wav etc and video – 3gp, mpg, mp4, avi etc.
14. HIGH CAPACITY BATTERY – To do all of the above, the phone needs to have a cracking battery with a standby life of at least 24 hours and talk time of at least 6 hours – after all it’s not a super smartphone if it spends more time with the wall socket than being caressed by your hands.
15. EXTREME CUSTOMIZABILITY – Last but definitely not the least, the phone has to be amenable to some extreme customization. By this I don’t mean mere wallpaper or theme changes, I mean the ability to change the entire OS build or the functionality of the softwares in the phone. If you can’t change the phone to your liking, then is it really that you own the phone or that the phone manufacturer who owns you???
I would like to conclude by urging all of you, who bothered to read thus far and did not close the web page out of angst and frustration about my belittling your prized possession, to relook at the phone in your hand. If it is a mere impostor of a super-smartphone and it falls short on even a single one of the above counts, then please return it for your money-back to the manufacturer, though I would doubt you would get your money back since in this case it is not the phone but it’s manufacturer who is the SUPER-SMART one!!!
P.S. Before you start with theories of such super-smart phone existing only in myth, please bear in mind that my HTC Touch Pro 2 has all of the above features :):):)