i just want to share my ideas regarding a next gen smartphone.
I bought my first smartphone (iPhone 5) in 2012 and i am still using it a lot.
However i am sure you can imagine that this phone is becoming pretty old (from a phones perspective )
I have been looking for new small (the size of an iPhone 5) Smartphones in the past, but didnĀ“t find any device other than iPhone SE (which i actually like, but itĀ“s far too expensive here in Germany and i donĀ“t like the idea of having the exact same phone as my next smartphone)
That is why i am writing this post.
And this is my wishlist for a perfect smartphone:
hight quality materials
small form factor: display can be bigger than 4", but the phone should be one-hand usable without having to worry about dropping the phone by accident ā Size of an iPhone 5 with a bigger screen and less bezzles
next gen components: high processing/graphics power
lte, nfc, bluetooth, next gen wlan, etc.
good battery life: getting through one day of normal usage is enough, but it needs to have some kind of quick charging technology
usb type c
Screen doesnĀ“t have to be super hight dpi, but it should at least be āretinaā level
Thickness: doesnĀ“t have to be super thin, but it should be somewhere around iPhone 5 level, so that you wont drop it by accident
OS: Android or Windows 10 Mobile
Windows 10 Mobile: Continuum support
i personally donĀ“t like on screen buttons, because they take up so much space. But in the end i wouldĀ“t care that much about it.
fast finger print reader, some decent (doesnĀ“t have to be ultra dslr level) camera (front and back), some decent speakers (i acutally like iPhone 5 speakers)
I hope you like my ideas and appreciate any comments regarding this topic.
I talked to some workmates and they missing small form factor smartphones, too.
The idea of having a small powerhose in you pocket, that fits in every kind of pocket, is easy to use and doesnĀ“t replace your tablet needs to get more support by phone companies and i hope that eve community will be able to design such a smartphone.
actually the camera is the component where I personally would be most keen on seeing high-end specs
now what exactly is normal usage in your case? I can get through 2, sometimes 3 days with my Lumia 532 (though since I may unexpectedly need it a lot at the moment, I charge it every night, but I remember a time when I didnāt )
Of course, me I would expect similar (if not better) battery life in a premium phoneā¦ though I have to admit that the question is whether it would still be high-end as when it comes to the phone Iād be prepared to sacrifice some performance for battery life.
(was very happy with my feature phones up to almost a year ago, when having a smartphone became necessary - at least temporarily ;))
tsk tskā¦ now you have indeed required me to look up the OnePlus 3ās specs myselfā¦ (yes Iām lazy )
agreed on the ONePlus 3 level to be sufficientā¦ though MORE! BETTER! ARRGH!
it seems there could be some reasonable improvement on the flash and noise reduction at low light thoughā¦
I find the concepts with two lenses rather interesting btw.
I currently own an Xperia Z5 Compact and Iām quite happy with it. But I agree that there isnāt much choice in that areaā¦ @saibotna What top end components are you looking for that the Z5 Compact doesnāt bring to the table? Just curious.
I like decent cameras for digitising notes for university using scanner apps.
I would also gag over an Eve phone. A VP (pyramid flipped phone/portable) if you will.
But I would love a thicker phone with a big battery and a screen similar to the Xiaomi MiMix in terms of its edge to edge design (what the OP was suggesting?), but not the screen size (but I am probably a fan of 4.8" of real estate which is bigger than your suggestion, but with edge to edge it could suit?).
Edit: I have a Sony Xperia Z5 and while the specs are better than the Compact equivalent, I have had to have it repaired so very many times. Iām completely over Sony as a company because of it. But I have a wee female friend with little hands who really likes the compact because she can actually hold it unlike most android phones out these days.
Iāve been rolling this idea around this forum for a while, and basically there are people who like it and those who donāt.
I even made a poll for it:
There are 20% of voters (out of 98), who voted for 4.7", and then 13% for 4"-4.5". If we add those two numbers, that would be pretty much 1/3 of all voters.
And I have something to say to those who donāt like this idea:
There are lots of great phones to choose from. Be it HTC (my favorite except screen size), Oneplus or Asus (super bang for buck), there is a lot to choose from.
Let me run through some numbers:
GSMArena (click) lists 490 smartphones with 5" or larger screens released since the beginning of last year (2016).
That includes 343 smartphones with 2GB or more RAM, which I consider the minimum for enjoyable experience. I didnāt filter them by processors as thereās no definite scale to filter on, but generally if it has 2GB of RAM it has at least a half good CPU
Now letās list the phones from the same period of time, under 5". We get 100 results.
But wait! That also includes non-smart phones like this one. And even smartwatches, which are unrelated to our search. I filtered it by OS, included all the major (and not so major) players: Android, Windows Phone, iOS, Firefox OS. Now itās 71ā¦
Letās add a RAM filter like we did with larger phones. That brings us to a whopping NINE!!! phones. Thatās a lot! [/sarcasm]
Now we open the result and see thisā¦ One of them is a rugged phone that is just as big as a normal 5.2" phone (except thicker) (blue), three are unavailable anywhere outside Asia (green). Then we have 2 iPhones (red) which belong to a closed āwalled gardenā ecosystem that not everyone is willing to accept, and are horribly overpriced. Which leaves us with 3 Android phones. Neither of them has really top of the line specs, and only one of them can bravely wear the āmid rangeā label. The other two are complete garbage.
So, weāre comparing 300 (or at least dozens, after filtering out what we donāt like) big smartphones with 9 (or just one really worth attention) smaller ones. That is far away even from the poll results.
Another note: my hands are not small. You can see them in action here:
####What I would personally suggest as a followup to the original proposal:
(assuming Android)
Size: whatās important here is the width, at least to me. I need to grip the phone on its left bezel (Iām holding it with my right hand) so that it doesnāt slip out easily, and still be able to touch every single pixel on the screen without moving the device in my hand. Moving it around results in quite long delays between some touches, which really slows down everything, not to mention how uncomfortable it is. I suggest no wider than 65mm. That would be the absolute maximum. IPhone SE is around 60mm wide, and that is the perfect size IMO, but some people want that bigger screen so it would be smart to do a compromise here. Up to 65mm should satisfy everyone who is not satisfied with current oversized handsets, maybe 63mm is the sweet spot. BQ managed to fit 4.5" into 63.5mm, so if we minimize the bezel size we should be able to get 4.6" into 63mm. Iām personally satisfied with 4.3" - I recently had to use my HTC Sensation while my main phone was broken, and I almost fell in love with it again. It could be a bit narrower, but I donāt need a bigger screen.
Hardware specs: 2GB of RAM is currently enough IMO. Nowadays weāre used to more, but thatās because most manufacturers overload their phones with bloatware that they canāt run without lag on 2GB. If you remove the bloatware, 2GB is just enough for pretty much everything you can do on an Android. Especially with a small screen, because RAM is shared with the graphics chip. Or, letās add an extra GB and get 3GB for futureproofing. The processor - it doesnāt need to be the latest and greatest, but Iād say it should be a Snapdragon 800 series chip released within one year before the release of the phone. Again, a small screen device doesnāt need as powerful a graphics chip, so getting the best chipset out there would be an overkill. Iād say even the best of 600 series would be good, but it could prove to be annoying in the long run.
Connectivity: I have never really used NFC apart from testing purposes. Some museums have stickers that link to audio guides, thatās the best use I can think of (apart from advertising, which I think we all hate). But then, most museums also have free WiFi hotspots for their visitors (price included in ticket) and downloadable audio guide apps. As well as QR codes. Iād rather spend a second or two opening my camera app than pay for NFC antenna that Iād use maybe once or twice in the whole lifetime of the device. So my vote is no on this one, but itās just my opinion. Other than that, it looks great. I just need it to have LTE, as I donāt buy a new WiFi router every time a new tech appears (yeah Iām still using b/g/n), but I understand why others want it.
Buttons: software buttons are a good idea sometimes, but the truth is that theyāre often annoying. They appear so close to other UI elements, that very often when pressing the back button of my phone I end up also pressing the reply button in Outlook. So every once in a while I need to clear my drafts folder out of weird empty drafts that I donāt remember ever creating. I personally prefer hardware buttons with good spacing from the screen and at least one of them being a true physical button, like in Samsung phones. Some of you might not understand this, but to me itās critical to have a way to answer phone calls when wearing thick snow gloves. Trust me, itās not fun when you get a call in the middle of the street in -20 degree Celcius and have to use your frozen nose to answer it. Thatās why I just love physical buttons that I can assign to answering calls Power button rejects calls, volume buttons mute them, but I need another one for answering them.
Thickness and weight: I like it a bit to the hefty side. A simple reason for this is physics: imagine youāre riding a bus and thereās a bump on the road. A light smartphone would jump off your hand and (possibly) land on floor, while a heavy phone stays in your hand because gravity doesnāt let it jump as high. Speaking of thickness, I donāt even know. I understand itās hard to stuff the usual specs of 5" smartphone into a 4.5" body, so Iām not asking for a slim body. However, Iāve noticed one thing: as long as it has curved edges (to make it easier to hold), I donāt really feel the thickness. For example, I had HTC Sensation and then switched to Samsung S4. I could tell it was thinner because I had both of them in hand, but in actual usage I didnāt really notice much of a difference. Except that the Samsung felt too light for me (the bus and bumps problem ). So, Iād say it can be up to 10mm or even slightly thicker. But if itās over, letās say, 8mm, it must have curved (body) edges. (look at Asus Zenfone 2 or HTC Sensation if you want an illustration - no, not screen edges but body edges)
Screen - should be readable outside, I really donāt know how many ānitsā that equals so Iāll only be able to give my opinion after I receive the V since I know how many nits it has. 720p is more than enough.
Build: Iām a fan of metal bodies, but Iām also a fan of removable covers. I want to be able to swap out SIM and SD cards without using a special tool, because those are easy to lose and I would not always have one at hand. BTW, usually those holes donāt fit a toothpick so that wonāt work. If they manage to do both, itās perfect. If not, Iād advise to at least have a metal frame. Again, the Sensation is a good example, but that design is incompatible with small bezels.
Other features: itās impossible to have good speakers in this size, so letās just forget about that. Every phone Iāve seen so far sounds like rubbish, even if they advertise their speakers a lot. Letās just leave it that way and not expect anything significantly better, because itās just not physically possible. I donāt need a front camera, but the back camera should be at least 8MP and not just some cheap crap. That is, it shouldnāt be chosen for the sole purpose of writing ā8MPā on it, it should be chosen for actually being good. Fingerprint scanner is not my style - I prefer just keeping the phone in my pocket and not giving it away to people I donāt trust, that way I donāt need to lock it at all
And this is the only time I donāt mind USB-C. I mean, I donāt like the idea of replacing all my cables now just because of it being reversible, but itās a phone and I donāt have to replace that much. Only a couple of charging cables and an OTG adapter. If it was more of a serious computing device, I would be against it because then Iād need to use an adapter 99.9% of the time.
Now, if itās some flavor of Windowsā¦ It needs to be actual Windows. Not Windows Phone (otherwise called Windows 10 Mobile), not Windows RT (otherwise called Windows 10 on ARM). It needs to be full Windows running on a real Intel CPU, otherwise it will be lacking many apps that are vital to my life. So, from the above specs Iād change it to an Intel Core M3 CPU and 4GB of RAM, but that is hardly possible in the size weāre talking about, so Iād like to stick to Android for now.
The only small fault I have with your fantastic proposal is NFC. I use it daily to top up my travel cards (I know people in London UK and Dublin Ireland do this, I presume elsewhere too?) and also have my debit/credit cards on Google pay to use them via the NFC protocol.
I also adore fingerprint scanning for my online banking apps and unlocking the device, but thatās personal use.
And I like a GOOD camera to take pictures of notes/whiteboard in lectures, and a decent front facing one as my partner lives abroad and itās the only way I get to see his happy face and vice versa ā¦ and this is also personal use.
Edit: I donāt top up my travel card dailyā¦ But I do it often and I hate doing it in the shop, itās great when youāre running for the bus/train. I do however use my Google wallet app thing most days.
Oh, well I donāt use those payment methods so I forgot about it Iām not a āsecurity freakā, but I tend to be careful when it comes to money. So I donāt use a credit card or that new ācontact-lessā card, because theyāre not safe enough. Same applies to mobile payments - Android is a vulnerable platform, and even if it hasnāt been hacked yet, itās fairly new and I donāt want to risk it.
And speaking of those cablesā¦ I really see no point in switching to USB-C especially since we have these reversible cables already. But as I said, with a phone I only need to replace a handful of cables, so itās not that big of a deal. If anyone insists on type C, I wonāt mind.
Oh and I almost forgot the camera partā¦ I mainly use my phoneās camera for scanning paper and whiteboards, but I donāt think we need a really good camera. My phoneās 8MP is just barely enough, but if it could take photos with shorter exposure (I guess wider lens would help), it would be pretty much all I need. Right now the biggest problem is shake, as itās super sensitive to even the slightest hand movements. As I said, this could be fixed by shortening the exposure time (but with the same sensor photos would come out too dark).
By the way, I forgot to mention one thing in my big post:
The battery. I think 2000mAh should be enough. My Zenfone 2 lasts a full day and some more with 2500mAh, and letās not forget that Intel processors are still less energy efficient than ARM. Add that to a smaller screen and no bloatwareā¦ So it should be enough We donāt want our phone to be 2cm thick so even though Iād prefer more, Iād recommend sticking to the minimum.
I thought you might like to know about the cables for your current personal use ā¦ I havenāt tested them, so I donāt know how efficient and practical they are though.
Totally agree with shaking and blurry images, it annoys me to no end. Youāre right that a cameras worth isnāt based on just megapixels, so whatever works in between that it takes clear pictures, however that may be
donāt forget sensor size (and quality)
itās actually not so much about megapixelsā¦ though having a decent number would be nice as in a phone youād rely purely on digital zoomā¦
Nah, I donāt care about reversible cables at all. I really donāt understand the fuss about itā¦ Why canāt people just look at the cable or touch it before inserting it? To me, itās enough to just touch the surface of a microUSB cable, or the tip of a USB-A cable, to see which way it goes. I donāt even need to turn my eyes. Oh, and even with reversible cables thereās some touching. So no extra time wasted.
@mlivesey I understand your desire to take good pictures, but no phone will replace a real digital camera. There are plenty of compact cameras that shoot really great photos, and itās probably cheaper to buy one separately than to buy a phone that has the equivalent quality, anywayā¦
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I can get through 2, sometimes 3 days with my Lumia 532 (though since I may unexpectedly need it a lot at the moment, I charge it every night, but I remember a time when I didnāt 
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ā¦ and this is also personal use.
ā¦ I havenāt tested them, so I donāt know how efficient and practical they are though.