10 Essential Features to Look for in Today’s Smartphones

The smartphone market is changing in important ways. Smartphones are getting bigger and more powerful and the prices attached seem to rise by the month. While a high-end smartphone might have about $700 just a couple of years ago, today’s market-leading handsets, such as Apple’s iPhone X, hit $1,000. But smartphone buyers seem willing to pay that much to get the latest designs with ultra-high-resolution displays and enough processing power to handle the most advanced mobile applications, If 2017 has taught us anything, it’s that there’s a formula for delivering a popular smartphone. As 2018 approaches, smartphone makers will adhere to that formula if they want to keep their products at the top of the market.  Read on to find out what it will take to market a popular smartphone in 2018.

If recent high-end smartphone successes are any indication, it’s not a good idea to offer a device with a thick bezel around the screen. Instead, companies like Apple and Samsung are reducing the size of handset bezels to the vanishing point to allow for as much screen area as possible. The move also means the companies are eliminating physical home buttons in favor of virtual replacements.

Smartphone makers have plenty of incentive to shrink the bezels because buyers are demonstrating that they favor handsets with larger screens. Apple’s iPhone X has the biggest screen the company has ever offered at 5.8 inches. Meanwhile, other handset makers, such as Sony, Samsung and LG, are pushing the boundaries of screen size, with devices featuring displays that exceed six inches.

Smartphone market leaders have all decided that organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology is the future. And that’s why those companies are offering OLED screens in their devices. OLED technology allows handset makers to deliver screens that are brighter, thinner, and even bendable. OLED provides far more design flexibility than competing LDC technology. 

The key differentiating factor between high-end smartphones and midrange handsets is their processing power. Top of the market devices have the most powerful CPUs, including the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835. In 2018, devices that don’t ship with the 835’s replacement, which is predictably expected to be known as the Snapdragon 845, will look obsolete.

Battery life has become a major selling point for companies. And whether it’s Apple, Samsung, LG, or another company, each vendor is trying to stake claim to the longest battery life. Additionally, the companies are offering fast-charging capabilities in a bid to keep smartphones charged throughout the day.

It’s critical for companies making high-end smartphones today to offer a dual-camera array. Exactly how they do it, however, is a bit different. Apple, for instance, offers both a vertically aligned and horizontally aligned dual-lens camera in its iPhone X and iPhone 8 Plus, respectively. Samsung has so far stuck to horizontal alignment. However handset makers arrange the lenses, consumers want a dual-lens camera in an expensive smartphone.

Biometric technology is quickly becoming a differentiating factor between high-end and midrange smartphones. The top smartphones on the market come with at least one biometric component, including a fingerprint sensor or a face scanner. Others even include an iris scanner. In 2018, the top devices will deliver sophisticated biometrics aimed at reducing chances of a hacker accessing sensitive data.

Companies trying to sell the latest hardware without the latest software are making a mistake. Customers paying $1,000 or more for a smartphone want the latest security features available in the most recent operating system releases. They also want all the features they won’t get in older operating systems. In today’s smartphone market, the latest software is a requirement for success.

One thing companies need to work on for 2018 is how they’re building their devices to resist damage. Apple’s iPhone X is water- and dust-resistant, but when dropped, the screen shatters far too easily. Although consumers have been conditioned to buy cases for their devices, many would appreciate more rugged handsets that can survive drops and falls.

Smartphones are becoming more and more expensive, as evidenced by an iPhone X model that tops out at $1,149. But there are some buyers that are convinced that the handset provides solid value for the price.  Other handset makers will follow suit in the coming years striking a carefully analyzed balance between features and price.