Indian smartphone market has bloomed four folds in last 4 years and so the manufacturers have adapted to the growing demands of the ever growing mass of smartphone users.
In this run, cutting edge performance and looks doesn’t simply keep up with the “competition” hence many features advance into the little devices that have become a part of our lives. Many of these features prove to be fruitful and innovative. Some although being innovative doesn’t quite break the ice.
These build up to form the myths and marketing schemes the OEMs use to gain mass user publicity and acknowledgement. We therefore at gawking geeks provide you the 5 common smartphone myths and gimmicks and enough intel to bust them.
1. 64 bit processors –
Trend started by Apple inc. debuting in the iphone 5S, the 64 bit instruction set computing technology really doesn’t affect performance much when smartphones are considered. PC softwares had their fair amount of time to adapt to the 64 bit architecture set and its benefits. And we are in that time of smartphone evolution where 64 bit mobile softwares are still in their infancy. Raw performance figures don’t get affected by the increased bits though, although you can have more on-board ram (above 3GB) but to be honest that would be pure overkill seeing the requirement and utilization of ram in smartphone platforms nowadays. And when time comes when 3+ gigs of ram becomes essential, the device is gonna end up its life of 3-4 years anyways.
2. 2K screens-
Another Apple inc reference here, when they incorporated a “Retina screen” on the iphone, they claimed to boast the most sharpest and vivid screen on any smartphone because of the high pixel density of 326 pixels present per inch of the screen (and was claimed that human eye cannot see above 326 ppi). A year ago, companies used to cram 1080p resolutions in 5″ to 6″ devices to produce pixel density above 400ppi and then samsung unveiled the Note 4 which had a 1440p screen a.k.a 2K a.k.a QHD which represents a monstrous resolution of 2560×1440 pixels. This pushed the pixel density above 500ppi mark but trust me the clarity is not as humongously boosted as the number of pixels, of course you’ll notice a difference between a 500ppi screen and a 400ppi screen if you put them side by side but as far as stand alone usage is concerned, 1080p screens are just fine.
Also, for smartphone gamers, the increased resolution is quite taxing on the GPU and other SoC components so if you like a device but you’re confused with it’s “not so in” 1080p screen, even most mid to high end mainstream gaming PCs can’t handle 1440p with playable frame rates.
3. Optical Image Stabilization
This topic is kinda varies people to people, some might have shaky hands and would find OIS (optical image stabilization) a bliss, some might think of it as a gimmick and would be satisfied by using digital image stabilization, but what is image stabilization in the first place? The name says it all, while you click pictures in dim to low light, slow shutter speeds might result in shaked images so there are moving mechanisms that help keep the camera sensor stable (Optical Image stabilization) or sometimes a software does that task (Digital Image stabiliaztion). In my opinion, if done right, Digital Image stabilization could be just as good as OIS like on the iPhone 6 (another Apple refrence, Ikr) vs the OIS on iphone 6+
4. 4K recording
“Whow! Is that a 4K vid?! Looks so damn awesome!”
The reaction is quite common amongst owners of smartphones with 4K recording capabilities, while they may or may not know that there’s a time limit in every smartphone till date to record 4K videos, and let me tell you why.
4K aka UHD aka 2160p has four times the number of pixels than FullHD 1080p resolution and that’s so huge that even the smartphone’s camera get over-strained if there was no time limit for 4K recordings. If you are tired of storing/uploading large video file size of 1080p videos then leave alone 2160p. However the storage and file size depends on the compression rate of the phone, so commenting on the size would be hard. But I guess you all get my point. So don’t get depressed if you were thinking of buying a phone but it didn’t have 4K recording, 4K technology is still in it’s infancy even on the larger scale.
5. Octa core processors:
“More cores means more performance” that was a lie fed to PC users by the industry for a decade. octa core CPUs currently come in different varieties, first type is like Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 for example which has 2 sets of quad core CPUs with same core architecture (64 bit ARM Cortex A53 cores in this case) running at 2 different frequencies, in this case one set at 1GHz while other at 1.8 GHz, if the situation favors efficiency, lower set work their day and if the situation demands performance, the faster set takes off and kicks in. Second type is what we call Big.Little configuration in which 2 different types of cores are used in 2 sets, like in the Samsung Exynos 5430, four of them based on ARM Cortex A17 (powerful set) and four based on Cortex A7, these cores don’t work simultaneously and hence this is what we call pseudo octa core. The third type is what Mediatek boasts and is called TruOcta core SoC like Mediatek MTK6592 with eight efficient Cortex A7 cores which function simultaneously.
Also, this implies that the weaker 8 cores (based on Cortex A7) on the MTK6592 gets totally bashed by some strong quad cored SoC like Snapdragon 801 (four Krait 400 cores) or even the Intel Atom Z3580 (four Silvermont cores), thus implying the same fact as in PCs, few stronger cores are better than more but weaker cores. You’d ask why this fiasco? Just like the 64 bit hoax, 8 cores is what we’d need in coming 6-7 years later. 10% of the PC software require more than 4 cores, just imagine the infancy of the smartphones vs. PC. Maybe that’s why the iphones perform at par with the android smartphones with double or more number of cores, it’s the quality (architecture) of the cores that matters more than their quantity.
Aware of any other smartphone myth which lurks around the common masses? Tell us in the comments. 🙂