What New Feature Do You Most Want to See Become Standard on Smartphones? Discussion

[Ed Hardy]

Over time, features that were once available only in high-end models trickle down to become standard on virtually every smartphone. What currently cutting-edge feature would you most like to see become mainstream?

Read the full content of this Article: What New Feature Do You Most Want to See Become Standard on Smartphones?

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[skaheadva]

I would say take a current highend phone like the desire or evo and make everything 10 times more energy efficient and increase batter capacity without increasing size. The overall goal would be to increase the battery life to a 2 or 3 days of moderate use.

[Antoine Wright]

Other, those features listed, except for biometrics, will logically come down-market.

My list would have: contextual user interfaces, localized haptic feedback, context shifting buttons, and dynamic address books (a la webOS, Maemo, etc.).

[tbessie]

I would say take a current highend phone like the desire or evo and make everything 10 times more energy efficient and increase batter capacity without increasing size. The overall goal would be to increase the battery life to a 2 or 3 days of moderate use.

Do you happen to know if there are battery, screen, CPU, memory and radio technologies that could do that, but are just prohibitively expensive?

- Tim

[skaheadva]

There is higher capacity battery tech available with a lower loss discharge rate. I’d imagine that the reason we don’t see this in phones is cost. As far as cpu/screen tech, I’m unsure. I know that Samsung has made strides with power consumption on the screen side but I’m not sure if there has been anything done in the area of real time cpu throttling as of late.

[LandSurveyor]

I agree with Antoine. All that stuff is coming, one way or another.
I went with LTE. I find it strange that it is so little discussed outside industry newsletters. After all, VZW is supposed to begin deploying it before the end of this year, believe it or not. Even Metro PCS is to deploy it. And all our current phones, smart or otherwise, will be quickly obsoleted, probably much sooner than analog phones were phased out.

[Antoine Wright]

I agree with Antoine. All that stuff is coming, one way or another.
I went with LTE. I find it strange that it is so little discussed outside industry newsletters. After all, VZW is supposed to begin deploying it before the end of this year, believe it or not. Even Metro PCS is to deploy it. And all our current phones, smart or otherwise, will be quickly obsoleted, probably much sooner than analog phones were phased out.

That's because many projections for LTE have it at no more than 20% global use in the next 5-7 years. There's still a lot of work being done around stamdarization and switching between LTE and GSM networks, with am extra layer of fun for Verizon who is the loudest CDMA participant of LTE. It is just not going to be that big of a deal to end users as much as it ismfor carriers and utility/financial companies.

[Mi An]

HDMI out

.....

[Octagoncow]

I would love to have optical zoom on phones eventually. I'm not wanting anything huge, but I can't stand digital zoom.

[LandSurveyor]

That's because many projections for LTE have it at no more than 20% global use in the next 5-7 years. There's still a lot of work being done around stamdarization and switching between LTE and GSM networks, with am extra layer of fun for Verizon who is the loudest CDMA participant of LTE. It is just not going to be that big of a deal to end users as much as it ismfor carriers and utility/financial companies.

That's not really a bad thing. It removes one complication from the choice I will have to make next year.

I would love to have optical zoom on phones eventually. I'm not wanting anything huge, but I can't stand digital zoom.

I agree but it's very hard to pack that into a phone. I believe Samsung made some but few or none were imported. Best compromise seems to be a high pixel camera and cropping for now.