Smartphones are no longer a convenience for making the occasional call, or to be used in case of an emergency. They are now an extension of our very being, and many of us would simply curl up in a corner and rock back and forth if required to spend an extended amount of time without our digital lifeline. This passion for our cellular carers has created armies of dedicated fans prepared to argue until they’re blue in the face their choice of smartphone is the best.
The real question is, when looking at it objectively, is there really that much difference between the different smartphones? Once we have answered this fundamental question we can take an honest look at the obsession with our second brain and ask the all important questions. Does it really matter? Are we sad individuals for caring so much?
‘smartphones’ – Sam Churchill via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
For The Instagram Addicts
We all know if something happens and nobody gets out a smartphone to film or record it, then technically it never really happened. It’s lucky for us that approximately 95.99% of every crowd at a notable event will be filming or snapping away. From your kid’s first outing as a tree in the school play, the all-important pictures of what you’re pretending to eat for lunch, or a screenshot of a win after placing a bet on your favorite casino, our whole lives are now immortalized in a digital album. Sure, winning a multiple acca bet on Mr Green is great, especially if you’ve used elaborate handicap markets and thought about it a lot. But surely you don’t want the rest of us to know… Or do you? Great then, drinks are on you.
This means when we here manufacturers telling us their latest model has a 20-megapixel camera, we start salivating at the mouth and working out when our next upgrade is due. After all, that’s a whole 2 megapixels more than your current phone. But do you realize anything above approximately 12-megapixels is unlikely to improve the picture quality to any noticeable degree in a smartphone? In fact, some experts say the reduced pixel size required to fit more into a limited space actually creates more digital noise. It also means they take longer to process, which reduces the burst rate and creates bigger image files that take up more memory, which is second only to battery life in the smartphone list of golden features.
Despite this, we’ll still wait with bated breath for the latest model and then take hundreds of pointless photos we wouldn’t have otherwise taken, including at least 100 selfies, so we can show people how amazingly crisp the detail is on our images.
‘Selfie’ – Lincy Mortier via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
For The Gamers
As smartphone capabilities have continued to develop they’re being used for increasingly impressive tasks. Okay, let’s be honest, what we really mean is the games have become prettier. There are several features designed to entice the gamers out there. Screen size, display resolution, and processing power. The mere mention of an increase in any of these will have the nearest gamer rushing to the toilet with excitement for a quick game of Candy Crush. With all this talk about next level games and VR and AR now appearing in more games, especially if you enjoy playing in online casinos, it feels increasingly important.
In truth, you would be hard pushed to find a bad flagship smartphone these days. There may be slight advantages in some areas and slight disadvantages in others, but rarely to a degree any of us would normally care about.
For Everyone Else
Social media, films, music, messaging, and sometimes even calls. We live the digital portion of our lives through our smartphones, and they are becoming increasingly more appealing than our real lives. This leads me to the conclusion there is an ever-shrinking gap in the differences between smartphones, but rather than judging them on their actual stats, we judge them on the importance they hold within our lives, which let’s face it, they sit somewhere between breathing and not accidentally using a cheese grater on our genitalia.
As long as we keep projecting this level of importance on the differences between devices, manufacturers will keep coming up with shiny new ways to wow and entice us into an excited mess at the mere thought of an updated model. Seriously, by the time my upgrade comes around, I expect the clouds to part and angels to appear from the heavens playing golden trumpets to deliver my new real-life avoidance assistant. I really must look up more.