Study about common parameters of smart phones
Touchscreen, processor speed, RAM capacity, etc, are the parameters that users should concern about when buying a smart phone.
The American PC World analyzed the most common characteristics in smart phone’s configuration that are related to hardware.
Micro Processor
Processor of smart phone works as its brain and is responsible for almost or all of center processing functions. The speed of 1 GHz is common among most of advanced smartphones, and it integrates with softwares to support displaying HD videos, browsing the web faster and more smoothly.
1GHz - processor manufactures are Samsung (Hummingbird, Apple A4), Texas Instruments (OMAP) and Qualcomm (Snapdragon). However, smartphone still works well even without 1GHz chip.
RAM
Like computers, multitasking capability of smart phones bases on RAM capacity. However, manufacturers rarely advertise RAM because its capacity is usually not high. Therefore, customers should learn carefully before buying.
Old smartphones often use 256 MB RAM, that is enough for sending messages, calling, browsing web and sometimes playing games; and allows launching some applications concurrently without decreasing duty. Advanced smartphones such as iPhone 4 and Nexus S are equipped with 512 MB RAM, and support more applications concurrently with no influence on speed.
Screen
2.7 inch screen is appropriate for sending messages and web browsing but users should choose the screen of more than 3.5 inches for playing game or watching video. Most of smartphones use LCD technology and the expense for production is quite cheap.
The most popular LCD is TFT (thin-film transistor), using thin film transistors to improve the quality of images. However, this technology encounters the restriction of viewing angel and displaying images poorly in the sun. Besides, TFT consumes a significant amount of energy, so it is usually used in junior phones. The IPS-LCD (in-plane-switching LCD) is equipped for Motorola Droid X and iPhone 4, also called Retina Display, improving the viewing angle and consuming less energy.
Meanwhile, Amoled (Active matrix organic light emitting diode) is preferred technology by many firms and can be found in products such as Google Nexus or HTC Droid Incredible. The display can be clearly seen in the sun; however, it is complained to be too colorful. Theoretically, Amoled requires less energy, thereby, increases battery life time. But it has not been proved in practical test.
Samsung Galaxy S is the first smartphone that uses Super Amoled screen developed by Samsung. Sensors are put right on the screen instead of a separate layer, which creates the thinnest screen generation in the market and more sensitive than Amled.
Touchscreen
Touch screen allows users to interact directly with interface and operating system of the device. There are 2 types of touchscreen: resistive screen and capacitive screen.
Resistive screens contain two transfer layers and have a small distance between them. When a finger or pen touch presses at point on the screen, these two layers will contact and form a circuit. Information will be transferred to the processor.
Capacitive screens are used in advanced smart phones, typically, iPhone 4. This kind of screen usually contains a layer of glass coated with transparent conductors, such as indium tin oxide. Human body itself is conductive, so when a finger touches this coat, it will create a disruption in the electrostatic field of the screen. The processor will detect the location of the interruption.
Battery
Most phones today use lithium-ion battery. Lithium is a chemical element, moving to the cathode of the battery and generating electric charge. It is rechargeable and is 2-3 times life longer than alkaline batteries. Using phones for a long time usually requires 1,500mAH battery, but the most popular battery is the 1,200-1,400 mHA one.
Camera
The higher the number of pixels is, the larger image resolution is. But the quality of 5-megapixel images and the one of 8-megapixel images are not different when displayed on phone’s screen. There’s a difference only when users want to print the images.
Like DSLR machine, having more pixels doesn’t mean having nicer photos. The factors affecting the quality of the photos are lens (for example, Nokia N-series uses Len Carl Zeiss), the ability of auto-focusing accurately and high shutter speed (play an important role when shooting fast-motion).
Micro SD memory card
The main difference among SD, MicroSD and MiniSD consists of their sizes. The majority of phones introduced in 2010 use the smallest version: MicroSD. MicroSD memory cards have capacity of from 2 GB (10USD) to 32 GB (150USD).
Gyroscope and Accelerometer
Most of smartphones are equipped with accelerometer along with ability of identifying that the device is placed vertically or horizontally to rotate the screen. However, there are few devices with gyroscope recently. Gyroscope allows more accurate recognition of motion in 3-D space, for example, when user moves the smart phone closer or farther away from them, gyroscope will recognize that motion.
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
Bluetooth is wireless technology that allows transmitting and receiving data between two devices in a short range (10 meters). Today, Bluetooth is upgraded to 3.0 standard and supports file transfer speed faster (24Mb/s) but it is quite new; therefore, most of the phone still uses the 2.1 standard.
Meanwhile, Wi-Fi 802.11 has undergone many protocols (a/b/g/n) with various speeds and coverage. Wi-Fi helps smartphone connect to wireless Internet in order to browse webs, send email, play games,… Most phones support standard g (54Mb/s) or b (Mb/s). The newest standard 802.11n can reach the speed of 600Mb/s theoretically, but it also depends on Internet connection and router.
Tags:accelerometerbatterybluetoothcameragyroscopemicro processorramscreensd memory cardtouch screen
