Apple iPhone 6 and Samsung Galaxy S6 are the selling hot cakes in the market but brands like Xiaomi and Huawei are also taking a bite in the pie. While the established market players have opted for premium materials and cutting edge specifications to retain market share, the relatively new Asian players are topping up more hard core specs and very competitive price points. What the smart phone market holds for the future is a matter of great debate, but we are loving the surprises from the OEMs every couple of weeks or so.
Now what makes a perfect smartphone?
Apparently none of the existing smartphones is an all-rounder. We have found out from a user survey and experts’ opinion (read tech bloggers), what might be a perfect smartphone for 2015. At least something we can hope to see before the holiday season. Now choice of materials seems to be very crucial for user experience.
So we are going with a full aluminum construction but not a uni-body, as it hurts the repairability. An optimum thickness would be around 7 mm and a weight of 150 grams. We hate to see the visible antenna bands at the back, rather it can be incorporated in the side bands like the Galaxy S6.
Power button sits best in the right side with a comfortable thumb reach and the volume rockers housed on the left side to avoid confusion.
It is fair to ask for a USB type-C connector along with the 3.5mm headphone jack at the bottom. A finger print scanner can be mounted at the back more like the heart-rate sensor in a Galaxy S6. Wireless charging and NFC would be great additions at the cost of the metal body for some, but that opens up room for other premium material selections. We always like surprises!
Coming to the display, a 5.5” AMOLED panel seemed to be the popular choice with quad HD resolution. We would love to see something like the recently announces bezel less LeTV phones with the protection of Gorilla glass 4 or better. For Android, on screen buttons are the favorite with a screen real-estate between 70-75%. Front facing speakers like HTC BoomSound are a must.
Camera has become one of the most important part of smartphones. We fancy a 20 mega pixel Sony sensor with f/1.8 aperture, with OIS and laser auto focus like the LG G3. The main shooter should be able to shoot 4k video too, and a sapphire lens for protection. A dual LED flash and an 8 MP front shooter for the selfie lovers.
Let’s get under the skin now.
Hardware wise, our best pick would be a Snapdragon 810 chip clocked at 2GHz paired with an Adreno 420 GPU. Top it up with a 4 GB RAM like the ASUS Zenfone 2, and a minimum of 64 GB ROM. Expandable storage is always welcome. A 3200 mAh battery would be a sweet spot considering the hardware mentioned above. We expect it to be running the latest version of stock Android and optimized for an 8 hours screen on time.
This could seem like an over-stretch for some but all these are picked from existing technologies and components. We have calculated the production cost to be around $300 (component wise), so with R&D and other overheads we predict a selling price of $600 in the international market. We may not get all of it from a single OEM but hey we shouldn’t shy away from making our demands?
Let’s call it the Dream smartphone of 2015 and keep our fingers crossed till the holiday season. You never know your prayers could be answered!
