What is smartphone?
Put simply it is a phone that is much smarter than it’s earlier relative who could only make and receive calls and text. The smartphone is basically just as much a small computer as it is a phone. It gets nearly all of it’s additional functionality because it can connect to the internet. Just some of the tasks a smartphone con do include:
- Surf the internet
- Receive and send email
- Watch live TV and view movie
- Make video calls
- Play online games
- Acts as a full GPS navigation system
- Run literally thousands of application with tasks as mundane as word processing to finding you the nearest cab when you come out late at night.
Which bits are important when looking for a smartphone?
In this guide we will have a look at the important parts which make a smartphone work and explain some of the technical jargon which gets used to describe how they function.
Display
This is one of the most important features. Not only does it function as the viewing screen for the reading messages, email, watching movies and playing games it will on nearly all smartphone also function as your keyboard so it needs to really well as a touch screen and viewing screen.
As our demand to be able to watch video and live tv on smartphone has increased so the manufactures have responded by increasing the screen size. You would expect your smartphone to have a minimum screen size of 3.5 inches increasing to 5 inches to 5 inches and over on some of the new smartphone which border on a cross between a phone and a mini-tablet. Screen size is measured diagonally across the screen from corer to corner to corer just like on a television.
Resolution
This is really important to understand. Electronics screen display an image by light up tiny little dots on the screen. The more dots a screen has in it the sharper the image will be and therefore it will look much clear. We call these little dots pixels and we can measure resolution by counting how many pixels are in the whole screen (number of pixels horizontally x number vertically)
- As a guide look for a screen resolution of at least 480*800
A better way to measure resolution is to count how many pixels are in a defined area (either per number square inch or square centimeter) This calculations takes into account how big your screen is. You will see the figure quoted as either pixel per inch ppi or pixels per centimeter ppc.
- The first iphone offered 165ppi and the iphone 4 offers 330ppi ( see our image to the right for comparison)
Modern screens use a new technology called AMOLED or Super AMOLED which stands for active-matrix organic light emitting diode. This is a technology which enable screen to have much higher color contrast and reduces power consumption. They produce very dark blacks and intense colours. Some manufactures have there own brand names for the screen such as Clear black and Retina display.
Remember that one drawback of large screen is much higher power consumption so your battery need re-charging more frequently.
A processer is simply the phones brain, it controls everything your phone can do. We measure how good a processor is by how fast it can work. The number of separate tasks it can perform in one second is called a cycle and you will see the term GHz used which is a gigacycle. 1Ghz is a big number one billion cycle per second.
As a board rule of thumb a faster processor will perform will better because it can cope with working on lots of tasks at the same time, perhaps downloding a video clip while updating your email and running a weather app all together.
- Look for a smartphone with a processor speed of a at least 1GHz, otherwise it may struggle with demanding tasks.
Memory
Memory is of course used for storing information, be that photos, phone numbers or music. There are different types of memory and useful to know a little them.
RAM – This is short for Random Access Memory and it is type of short term memory the phone uses when doing tasks. It is important that it works properly otherwise your phone will became slow and stop working properly.
cache – This helps out the RAM if it cannot keep up with the processor because it is working so fast.
Hard storage – The phone internal memory clip and – micro SD cards – these are little removable memory chips. All smartphone have some inbuilt memory for storage but on cheaper models this will be limit and can soon get full.
Cloud Storage – This is when your phone sends information be that video/photo’s music etc out of phone into internet and it gets stored securely on another computer for you.
Battery
Because smartphone have large screen and can perform lots of power hungry tasks, their batteries often last for less than 24 hours. Some heavy phone users even spare battery but many newer phones have sealed backs meaning you can’t swap in a new battery if it runs out of power.
Modern smartphone batteries usually a type called Lithium Ion. This has a very high energy density, meaning it can store a lot electricity while still being small and lightweight. Other advantages are that they can be charged must faster than older batteries (sometimes in as little as one hour) and they hold their charge well, even when the phone is switched off.
Entertainment
Having a smartphone means that you no longer need to carry round separated cameras, music players and laptops.
Camera
The typical mobile phone camera resolution is now over 3Mp (megapixels). This is still short of the standard mid-range digital camera but resolution are rising. Most mobile can also record video thought again the quality varies dramatically. Premium models, such as the iPhone 5, can even record in 1080p Full HD.
Software
Software is the name given to the computer codes which your phones processor reads(you cannot physically touch it so it is ‘soft’, unlike the hardware like the processor and battery). Software comes in different shapes and size, but there are really just two different shorts you should know a bit about.
Operating system
This determines how your phone, looks, works , and feels. It is vital and controls everything from the little sound it makes how it can surf the web. Smartphone come with the operating system already installed and you cannot changed it so it is very important that you buy a phone with a system you like. There are four main smartphone operating system: Apple iOS, Google Android, Windows Phones and BlackBerry OS.
- We have a an easy to easy to understand smartphones operating system guide which explain your different options.
App Store
Each operating system has its own app store where you can browse what on offer, read user reviews and then download your chosen app. Apps comes in all shapes and size-there are games apps, news apps, food apps many of which are free.