Smartphone Details/specs- How it affects you_part 2

Editor's note: This is a continuation of the first post "Phone specifications-how it affects you"

THE STORAGE: This is the part of the phone that allows you to store your files in your phone; music files, videos, games, applications, pictures, documents etc. The amount of files you can save in your phone depends on the amount of storage memory it carries. The storage memory is measured in Megabytes and Gigabytes. Most smartphones come with 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and 62GB models. Some phones allow you to expand the available storage through external memory cards and Cloud Storage.

 SCREEN SIZE AND RESOLUTION: The screen size of the phone is the physical size of the phone’s display and is measured in inches (“). The resolution of the screen is the amount of pixels (dots) in each dimension (width and height) that can be displayed. It is the concentration of pixels in the horizontal and diagonal layers of the screen. Imagine a painted wall in a house, if sufficient paint was used during the painting, the wall would be beautiful but if the paint was not enough, the color would not be evenly distributed in the wall and as such would not look nice. You should also note that the size of the wall affects if the paint would be enough or not. Now I hope you have a clearer view of the “display resolution”. It is always measure as width x height, so a resolution of “1024 x 768” means the display has 1024 pixels in the width with 768 pixels in the height. How does the display resolution affect your user experience? 

The higher the display resolution is, the sharper and clearer the screen would be, which means graphics are more beautiful in high resolution displays than low resolution displays.  

I honestly wish it was that simple but you must know; the quality of the display is determined by both the physical size of the display and its resolution. If a phone with a 5” display has the same resolution as a phone with a 3” display, the 3” phone would have more display quality because more pixels are concentrated per area of the display than that of the 5” display.

This means that bigger screens need bigger screen resolution to be able to meet up with the pixel density (number of pixels per area of the screen or pixels per inch-PPI) required to display high quality graphics. Relatively smaller screens can work well with relatively lower screen resolutions. In summary the pixel density (PPI- pixel per inch) determines the graphics quality of the display. 

Here are some of the resolutions found in popular smartphones:

SMART PHONE	DISPLAY SIZE	RESOLUTION	PIXEL DENSITY (PPI)
HTC One	4.7”	1080 x 1920	469
Galaxy s4	5”	1080 x 1920	441
Sony Xperia Z	5.0”	1080 x 1920	441
Blackberry Z10	4.2”	768 x 1280	355
Lumia 920	4.5”	768 x 1280	332
iPhone 5	4.0”	640 x 1136	326

 
BATTERY: Just how long will that battery last? Before buying a phone it’s very important to check the battery power, it could be very annoying to buy a phone only to discover the battery is not up to your expectations. I have a friend who instantly hated her new and lovely high-end smartphone when she discovered how poor the battery was. The strength of a battery is measured in Milliamps Hour (mAh).
The Milliamps Hour (mAh) rating is how long your battery will last per charge.  

Think of mAh as the gas tank in a car, and the voltage is how much gas is being used, the bigger the gas tank, the longer you can drive the car before having to refill, and also this depends on the amount of gas (voltage) your car (phone) consumes at a given time. Likewise the bigger your battery, the longer you can use your phone without having to recharge. Even if the mAh is long some factors affect how long the battery would actually last in real life; the screen size and brightness, the CPU activity, the RAM and the OS’s ability to conserve battery. If the battery is removable then that’s a plus one for you because you can always change the battery when it gets weak but if it’s non-removable, it means you are stuck with a dead battery.

COMPARING POPULAR SMARTPHONES’ BATTERY CAPACITY

SMART PHONE	TYPE	BATTERY CAPACITY
HTC One	Non-removable	2300 mAh
Galaxy s4	Removable	2600 mAh
Sony Xperia Z	Non-removable	2330 mAh
Blackberry Z10	Removable	1800 mAh
Lumia 920	Non-removable	2000 mAh
iPhone 5	Non-removable	1440 mAh

CAMERA: Is there any smartphone user who would not be happy to take out his/her phone and take some nice shots when occasion demands? No? I thought as much, nobody wants to go around with digital cameras all the time. But what happens when you dearly luved smartphone cannot give you quality pictures? Yea I thought of that too, disappointing right? 

Before buying your next phone, be sure to check the camera quality. Basically the camera quality is measured in megapixels (MP). Today’s standard is 5MP and 8MP for mid-range and high-end smartphones respectively but we expect 13MP to become the new standard for high-ends this year.

The “megapixels” tag in the phone’s camera alone cannot tell you how good shots will be, so be sure to check out camera/picture quality reviews coz other technical factors affect the camera performance.

 

continue to part 3