Fancy Features in today’s Smartphones that are barely useful

Smartphone industry is near stagnation. Everyone knows it. It was bound to happen considering the rate at which it was growing every year. Smartphones now a days don’t offer additional value or features as compared to their previous year counterparts. In contrast of today’s situation we saw huge improvements year on year 3-4 years back. Like when the Moto X came. It was such an amazing and different smartphone or when Oneplus and Xiaomi shook the market from top to bottom with their incredible bang for buck value.

Earlier whenever a new smartphone was launched people were excited to see what new useful feature it has to offer. But now it’s all about upgrading the internals. Just switching from previous SoC to the latest one. Most companies and customer alike are happy to see a new chip in a new phone. That’s one of the reasons to upgrade to a new smartphone.

But in race of this impractical upgradation companies have stuffed many useless features into the smartphone that is not needed but have been widely accepted by the industry. Some of these are pointed out below:

      1.       Bezel-less Screens: Surely you will say it’s the coolest thing in current generation smartphones. I would agree on that, it’s the coolest thing, but that’s it! It is cool, nothing else. It has basically no practical advantage of having bezel less screen apart from shrinking the dimensions of the phone and putting a bigger display and showing off its display feat. But it’s quite a pain to use bezel-less phones. You don’t have space to hold onto the phone. Unintentional touches will be more than your needed ones. Above all this companies have increased the size of the display by reducing its bezels, for instance Samsung’s current flagship Galaxy s8 has 5.8 inch screen with that infinity display.

When bezel-less phone was imagined a couple of years back it was thought as how great it would be to reduce the bezels “as to improve single hand usability” and looks of the phone. But with no bezels companies thought that why not put more screen to show off. So it rules out the one hand usability option. And everyone is happy about it. I don’t know why. Just imagine a less bezel (not bezel-less) phone with 5 inch Screen. How easy it would be to handle that phone. But market just favors big phones now. That’s how it is so we have to deal with it.

      2.       Curved/2.5D Screens: Again the much debated “Cool” feature of a phone. Curved screen like the Galaxy s8. So cool huh. But again it’s nearly impossible to protect that screen by applying any tempered glass because of its curves. Same goes with phones with 2.5D curved glass (which every phone comes with now a days). You will say that’s rubbish. Screen protectors are available for every phone. Yes they are. If you are pointing out to the plastic one’s, of which I am not a fan since I started using tempered glass, then no thank you. Because they are so easy to scratch and also they don’t provide any drop protection to the screen. I am talking about tempered glass.

Tempered glass comes in two types for curved screens. First is Edge to Edge one (the ones which comes with colored border) which covers whole display from edge to edge but has actual glue, underneath those colored border, on it which sticks to your phone display. The problem with this type is it leaves a rainbow kind of effect on the screen which is slightly noticeable but very irritating. Second Type of protectors are narrow ones which cut short up-to the point where the screen is flat. Now you can already see the issue with one already there is no full screen protection as sides are exposed. I forgot to mention the bubble issue you can have on the sides when the screen is curved an you apply the straight narrow tempered glass. Basically the in this issue tempered glass doesn’t stick to the screen from its edges, of course because of the curved screen, and there seems to be a bubble on the edges. Also curved screens are more prone to breakage as glass loses its strength when it’s curved.

Now someone will say why you are even applying tempered glass as current phones come with Gorilla Glass Screen which is scratch proof. So the reality is these screen are “Scratch Resistant” and not “Scratch proof”. No display in the world is scratch proof. A little particle of dust from here and there and your shiny smartphone screen will be full of scratches. Well if you are one of those who change their smartphones every year than you don’t have to care anyway but otherwise those will keep the phone for at least 2-3 years, like me, one should get a tempered glass installed. I preferred the good old flat screen which weren’t that tough enough to protect.

The conclusion is it’s a nuisance to protect the screen. So the curves are only for looks on your phone.

      3.       Glass Back Phones/ Wireless Charging: Again a thing which is used mainly to enhance the looks of the phone. Now a days we are carrying one of the most fragile materials, i.e., glass, in our pockets. We always hear the line “Handle with care, it’s made from glass” and now we are carrying it with us everywhere. It’s part of us now isn’t it? As smartphones are part of us and phones are made from glass these days not on single side (screen i.e.) but both the sides, front and the back too. Agree that it looks good. But just think! One of the most fragile material into one of the most used, and probably harshly, items we have. We use our phone so many times in a day that probability of dropping it is high and you know what happens when you drop glass. Of course it may be able to take a few drops but you can never be sure with glass. It can become many from one piece just by one wrong drop from even a feet.

Here the argument is that glass back allows us to charge our phone wirelessly. As convenient as it sounds but it’s not though. It’s still quite slow compared to the standards we have reached on traditional charging and the other gripe here is it’s difficult to use your phone while it’s sitting there on the disk and charging. I am guilty of using my phone while charging and most of you will be too. But it will not be practical to use your phone while charging wirelessly. I like going traditional way for that. Another thing is the convenience that comes with traditional chargers i.e. you can carry them anywhere and as far I can tell most people will put wireless chargers on a table in their home or office and forget it. Also I will choose cold feeling metal over fragile glass any day and forego wireless charging. I hope that some company is able to come up with a way to quick charge a metal phone wirelessly.

      4.       No 3.5 mm headphone jack: Yup! We are stepping in the age where USB type C will be the norm and there will be very less or no phones that will come with a 3.5 mm headphone jack. Both charging and connection of earphones will be through USB C .Basically just forget to use headphone while your phone is dying. Here comes the savior of the day “Bluetooth Headphones” you would say. Not so much. Firstly they are expensive than the regular wired ones. Secondly there sound quality is debatable. And thirdly you will also have to charge your wireless headphones as if there are not enough gadgets to charge already. And if you want to have those fancy zero wire ones you will have to take care of it a lot because it’s very easy to lose one unit. Personally I have to charge my phone, smart band, power bank and I get annoyed by these only so I don’t need another item which I have to charge on regular basis. On the other hand wired earphones provide optimal listening also you don’t have to charge them and no fear of losing one side because it’s wired.

      5.       Dual Cameras: Dual cameras are a gimmick! Don’t go crazy over this statement. I know someone will pull out there iPhone Plus variant or some other phone with similar characteristics and say “it takes great portrait shots because of the dual camera setup”! Well OK dual cameras are not completely useless but they are not as beneficial as they are marketed to be. They should not be a reason to buy a phone. As I have also said in my previous post “here” having dual camera doesn’t guarantee great pictures. There are many phones out there which have great single shooters for example Samsung galaxy s8 series, HTC U11 and Moto G5 plus ( in the budget range) to name a few. One can also back this claim, that dual cameras are not as beneficial, by having a look at the latest Pixel line of phones by Google. Google didn’t go for dual camera setup and can anyone tell why? Because they are not that useful. And I must tell you the new pixels have a phenomenal single camera on the back and though reviews still have to test them out completely initial impressions of the camera quality is damn impressive.

So if someone pitches you a phone and say it has a dual camera because of which it takes great pictures! Just don’t buy that phone. Picture quality has more to do than the quality of sensor, optics and camera software used than it has to do with the number of sensor used. If you want to know more about what it takes, for a smartphone camera, to capture a great picture let me know in the comments below. I will make a separate article explaining why some smartphones has better camera than the other even when they are in the same price range.

These are some of the major things in current generation smartphones that are there mostly for creating hype about the product. So next time when you are looking for a smartphone don't buy one just because it has one of these features.

Thank You, Stay Curious

Saurabh Khanna