3.1 Technology Wars
If in the past, smartphones hadn’t had much distinguishable than the normal telephone but since
the iPhone came out, the boundaries between feature phone smartphone is becoming clearer
nowadays. And thus, a series of smartphone devices from many different manufacturers have
been created to compete with the iPhone. Finally the results is something inevitable, to be able
to compete with Apple, some other manufacturers have good sales like Samsung, LG, Xiaomi
have to improve themselves which lead to a fiercely race of upgrading hardware and software
features.
3.1.1 Hardware
Previously, Steve Jobs once said: "No one will buy a smartphone with big screen". And in fact
everything was happening as opposed to what he said. Not just smartphone users prefer the
larger screen sizes, there is even a new term for these big screen phones which is known as
"phablet".
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The screen size on smartphones are growing and the one initiated this race is none other than
the Samsung. The product with its large screen such as Samsung Galaxy Note 1 showed that
large screen smartphone is very useful. Even Apple cannot ignore the pressure of why the
iPhone still does not have the big screen since other firms strong competition by the phablet has
made great influence to Apple’s sales. This led to Apple also have to increase the screen size on
their iPhone from 3.5 to 4 inches, or more recently as 4.7 inch and 5.5 inch on the iPhone 6 and
6 Plus (Yoshikazu 2014).
The race is not only the size but also the screen resolution. In 2012 HD display is standard,
however in 2013, Full HD is the new set and in 2014 the maximum resolution has increased to
2K. According to some studies, apparently, human eye can only see at a pixel density of 300
ppi which means smartphones with approximately 4.7 inch with HD resolution is enough. But
now, HD resolution is only on the mid-range smartphone (Erik 2013).
High resolution display is only for devices with large screens like phablet but the notion of users
is that they always want to buy best things with the money they have. Therefore, high-resolution
screen is always their first choice. Of course, high-resolution display on devices with small sizes
only reduce battery life and not really helpful. But very few people are interested in it.
Although powerful processors will bring a better experience for users. However, sometimes it
gives users a new smartphone with high profile becomes negative. Quite a lot of equipment
owned processor's 4-core or 8-core ... but in the course of actual use, it is quite annoying due to
the lag phenomenon, shock, heat or air-fast battery wastage. Even the use of multiple processors
simple multiplication purposes only to promote products and service for "test benchmark". Once
upon a time, the technology world tremble when firms such as LG, Samsung ... fraud to attain
higher benchmark than normal.
The race configuration is not necessarily indicative negative connotations. The development of
microprocessors with amazing speed has helped the mobile devices gradually catch up with
products such as Laptop, PC ... On the Android product, this development in hardware has kept
customers from turning their backs to this operating system due to its instability.
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Apple is the only company which is still out in race of configuration and now the camera
resolution. Both its latest products remain as 8 megapixel resolution compare to its predecessor.
However, the image quality of iPhone has always been appreciated by users. However,
improving resolution camera on the smartphone will provide better image quality, and the high
camera resolution can get a lot of the attention from consumers.
Although the camera resolution does not play important roles in the image quality, but it is
valuable in changing the user thought about selecting any smartphone camera. However,
deciding image quality depends on a lot of different factors. Therefore, if the product has high
resolution but the image quality is still poor then it really is a disaster.
Although only booming recently after a new trend of using “selfie rod” and the term "selfie"
became popular worldwide, the secondary camera begins to be used more equal, even more than
the main camera. Yet, in many different conditions, limitations caused front camera to capture
more than one person or the resolution doesn’t satisfy as the user wishes.
Understanding this need, in addition to upgrade the main camera, mobile firms have begun to
focus on front camera resolution and aperture. A series of newly launched smartphone with a
high resolution and wide aperture has been made to support the trend called "take a selfie",
typically the HTC Desire Eye, Samsung Galaxy Prime or Nokia Lumia 730 Grand.