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It is truly amazing what we put up with as consumers of electronic devices. The fact that a certain technology is readily available and has been for years does not necessarily mean that we are allowed to put our hands on it. Instead there is a huge secluded group of executives that meet off the books periodically to decide how long they will string out the public with this specific device or set of hardware spec, and which years in the future they will finally decide to release what they already have in hand and are using themselves as "prototypes".
I have an uncle who works for an integrator who makes all the internals that go inside these cell phones, and laptops, and other electronic devices, and he has showed me again and again the kind of technology that is available, and could be in the hands of the public for pennies on the dollar, but from a sales/profit standpoint it would not make sense to release this stuff. We are talking about phones that exist now, but we will not see until 5 years from now, that can already be as powerful as your 3.0ghz core2duo desktop computer. The same goes with laptops. Just as an example, in 2001, I had a Dell Latitude c840 Laptop, with 2GB RAM and a 2.4ghz processor. Come on, that was 7 years ago! Yet that is still the norm for average/decent computer these days that sells for $1,000.
The intentional slowing down of technology release to the public, and the huge gap between what is easily possible and what is readily available is just getting bigger and bigger. Think about it...allowing a cell phone board to handle 512mb instead of 256mb...come on, that is an overnight programming/hardware fix job...not 2-3 years. We have been trained by these corporations to expect it to take a year or two to come up with new hardware, when in fact it takes weeks, and max 2-3 months to invent this stuff. Companies like Intel and AMD have been providing other companies like SiliconImages with 8-16 core computers for the past 8 years...why are we, the general public, so low on the totem pole to these executives? We have it well within our power to shut down the system in less than a week by refusing to buy this cheap, dumbed down hardware.
Frankly I am sick of it, yet there is nothing I can do as a consumer to change it. We are scum and nothing in the eyes of the giant electronics corps, and right now we are eating up their tables scraps like it is the best invention we have ever seen. Come on - The TouchPro 2 from HTC could have been in my hand 5 years ago, yet we still right now are "waiting" for it, and will pay $500, $600, or $700 for one, a device that costs them $50-$100 to manufacture. They hold on to hardware as long as they possibly can to make as much money as they can. Yes, that is a good business strategy, but in the meantime we are left with crap hardware that just gets repackaged into a new plastic shell and given a different name, and we are supposed to drool over it...? Please. This just blows me away, the fact that we put up with this treatment is beyond me; and, it has gone on for so long that it is par for the course now, nobody can change it. We will continue to get low quality electronics when 10x more advanced devices are sitting on CEO's desks just gathering dust.
Well said. That is why I ain't investing on any phone unless it has about 1GHz of processor power.
Of course it's about cost issues. There are multiteraflops computers in this world, but why can't we get our hands on them? Because they cost too much, duh.
Think about it. Do you want to pay $500,000 for a phone? Just because it contains chips that will economically viable in about five years?
Soaa- said:
Of course it's about cost issues. There are multiteraflops computers in this world, but why can't we get our hands on them? Because they cost too much, duh.
Think about it. Do you want to pay $500,000 for a phone? Just because it contains chips that will economically viable in about five years?
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But that is exactly my point, it really does not cost that much. You have been conditioned to think that it costs hundreds of tousands of dollars for this stuff.
This was exactly my point. Consumers have been trained to believe that this stuff really costs SO much money when in fact it does not. So we just put it out of our mind as unaffordable, and settle for a much more mediocre device.
For example, a 60" Plasma Flast Screen TV made by Pioneer (the best HDTV maker on the market) costs then about $200-$300 to make...they charge over $1,500 to $2,000 now. Do you also remember when that same 60" Plasma costs over $10,000 to make back in 2000 or 2001? Well they were not using any different or better parts back then, in fact probably worse parts than the new ones, however the price came from the "idea" of what HDTV was, and not from the actual cost/prices.
Huge advancements in technology are being withheld from us under the guise that it costs a lot of money, when in fact it costs Intel no more money to manufacture and 80core chip than it does for then to manufacture a single core chip. Perhaps a few dollars more, but we're talking about 5% or 10% of the price they charge as their costs here. Why do you think electronic companies never go out of business? I mean the names like LG, Samsung, Pioneer, Panasonioc, Sony, Motorola, etc....these have been around forever, and always will be because they are pulling the wool over our eyes.
I get sick evertime I read a press release from one of the big electronic giants about a "new" technology being introduced into the market, and although the price is sky high, some peiople will buy it. All I can sit there and think about it "Wow, how many decades did they wait to show this to us, only to tell us it was new and charge us out the butt for something they have had in their possesion for years?"
GRR! I will stop venting now.
"1GHz of processor power."
Ghz is pointless it's easy to make a 1Ghz cpu but to get to perform
better then what you got is the task
clock is only the pace how much is don at each tick is what matters
like a 500Mhz arm based cpu don't performe as a 500Mhz x86 based cpu
and a p4 2.4Ghz dont performe as a core duo 2.4Ghz
Could intel make a 16 core chip right now? Yes! they could! it would use over 400 watts, have to be clocked pretty low, and cost 2,000 because of very low yields (what % have all cores functional) and low demand. The desktop PC CPU market is not holding out on us. Why are the chips still clocked around 3ghz or lower? because the new chips have a focus on efficiency. They make the chips do more work at lower mhz to reduce power usage and allow them to keep advancing. An E6600 for example is supposed to be equivilent to a P4 at 6.6ghz, though they have gotten a bit bad with those ratings and they don't really offer a good comparison any more. I will put it this way though, if you benchmark a 2.4ghz P4 against a 2.4ghz core 2 based chip, the P4 chip will get curb stomped.
LCD panels for HDTVs etc.. weren't being held back, they were just being gouged to high heaven. Hence all of the recent price fixing suits coming up.
Phones, we really are being held back. I really don't know why. Probably atleast partly to do with batteries not being good enough, but even with our current batteries we should have much better phones. I live in the US, we get shafted on phones above and beyond the normal shafting. A lot of the good phones dont support our carriers and the ones that do often dont support our 3G bands.
its the same situation with cars! churning out the same repackaged stuff and charging the earth for it..
I have never really been one of those out-and-out environmentalists; I do my share and never really spread my dogma around. Nor have I ever been paranoid, or been in the habit of getting enraged about every piece of inflammatory news coming my way; but recently, something struck a cord with me. The whole Apple/Foxconn fiasco, though overblown by the likes of Mike Daisey, really incited a few thoughts within me as far as the direction in which we are heading as consumers is concerned.
See, it is no secret that conditions in such factories are horrible. It has almost always been public knowledge, but public knowledge, is in essence, transient. As a race of consumers and tech-geeks, we tend to forget the bigger picture and are highly thrifty with our technological possessions.
I see a culture of indispensability emerging within our society, thinking of all our gadgets as use-and-throw implements, always craving for something better, whilst never thinking about what sort of labour goes into their production. I’ve seen plenty of teenagers, intentionally bashing their six-month old smartphone, just so they can convince their parents to buy a newer model and the rate of innovation such self-generating demand is driving is staggering.
According to Wikipedia, 150 workers threatened to jump off the roof. For a list of foxconn workers suicides, refer here.
From actually keeping and loving our gadgets for a long time, we have been driven to annual or in some cases semi-annual upgrade cycles, where each past generation seems obsolete to us. And the manufacturers are trapping us in, with innovations like sealed-in batteries, which make a phone far harder to repair and make it impossible for a consumer to just get a new battery and put it in after the older one dies out.
While all this accelerating growth and innovation always seemed pretty exciting to me, once I was introduced to the plight of the labourers, I started thinking along a different track. Right now, the world is exploiting the willingness of people in developing countries to work at exorbitantly cheap wages and thus manufacture products at a staggering rate, but this is not a sustainable model.
Imagine a time when even countries like China and our own have developed, who would the world turn to then? Countries even more destitute I imagine. Say this goes on, and at a point (though it seems pretty far off) every country is developed to a large extent, wouldn’t our whole rapid upgrade model bite us right in the derrière? We actually might not even have to worry about that possibility, as our environment itself would not be able to sustain such rapid and pervasive development for long.
Don’t take me wrong here; I’m not against technological innovation. In fact, being a tech-blogger, innovation is pretty much my bread-and-butter. What I am against is non-sustainable innovation, and that is the state of our mobile market right now. There are new SoC’s, new camera modules, new screen technologies coming out of every nook and cranny of the world right now, and we’ve gotten to the point that even a phone from 6 months ago starts looking pretty dated.
We need to remember that this cannot go on forever. We need to remember that there are thousands of people out there, working more than they are paid for, just to make sure enough of us get our spanking new iPhones on time. We direly need more stability in the mobile market, for our sake, and the world’s.
I can't believe the ATI(Adreno in spirit) and Nvidia(Tegra 1,2,3) battle is now in the mobile era, although the cpu core race is even more daunting...
It was not that long ago when 1 core dominated the market, but now we have Dualcores & Quadcores...My issue with this change is that I don't feel either are exactly required; for instance, WP7 & iOS are faster than Android, but are able to run on older hardware. And lets not forget the iPhones normally run at surprisingly low speeds, however they can get a lot done still.
I mean Samsung's SIII has a Quadcpu, but I doubt that's even necessary, what's wrong with staying in the dualcore/single range and focusing on improving the UI and general performance!?
I know I'm gonna get a lot of backlash for thinking this way, but developers will be lazy with programming if they know the HW will run whatever crap they throw at it. It's just hard to understand the logic behind increasing the core count/speed without actually fixing the problems that plagued the software(android in this case) , if you just take the time to fix the quirks then the device will run smoother. Though, it just seems companies are just interested in marketing gimmicks that most end users won't actually notice, plus most dual cores(S3, exynos,T2, etc) are competent with intensive apps.
The race for now is to produce phones with the most potential. Quad cores, when correctly optimized anyway, have much higher processing capacity and much lower power consumption when doing trivial tasks. The goal is to create interfaces that don't stutter or lag no matter how much you have going on and do so efficiently. There's also the backing of chipsets like the Tegra for high-end mobile entertainment. The end game is superphones, and the game is well afoot.
As to the necessity of it, just depends. I think most business users will be fine on dual core offerings with plenty of ram and a well-implemented overall system. For those who like to max their phones out the possibilities of the high-end development coming out is pretty great. Think about something like the Note with enough processing ability to act as a full input tablet for graphic designers, or that allows programmers to run and edit complex code on the go instead of having to drag a full-size tablet around with them. Think about doctors or researchers being able to monitor multiple sets of real-time data directly from their phones. There's certainly a market for all this, and I don't think it's an arms race just for the sake of showing off.
My $.02; hope that was all coherent.
MissionImprobable said:
The race for now is to produce phones with the most potential.
There's certainly a market for all this, and I don't think it's an arms race just for the sake of showing off.
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Your points are all valid, but I still fear that the Software remains on a level much lower than the hardware; there are tons of Android configurations out there that prevent High Quality HW from performing optimally, due to this, the "potential" of certain devices may never be recognized.
I understand that more cores promotes a sense of efficiency and less power draws, but this tends to lead programmers to optimizing less often. Sense 3.0 was extremely sluggish, same with 4.0, but do you notice the trend? Both Sense 3/4 were made for fast SoCs, to my surprise the result was still horrid. And for your point about the mini tablet(Note), I personally feel you would see those types of Apps on iOS devices instead. For the sake of it, I don't want you to think I am an Apple fan boy(just playing devil's advocate).
Maybe those were the kind of things you only saw on Apple previously, but clearly Samsung and others are serious about competing with them.
I am on a bent for the new Google phones that are going to be being produced. Now, I am not the largest fan of quad core yet but I see great potential in dual cores. Like for running Ubuntu Android, an Ubuntu desktop from your phone to a monitor!
These new phones are looking to have 28nm cortex A15 dual core chips, that would be one hot cookie!
Sent from my PC36100 using xda premium
First, for the dispassionate stuff:
Ace42 said:
but developers will be lazy with programming if they know the HW will run whatever crap they throw at it.
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Developers should be able to be "lazy" with programming: you don't see anyone going back into assembly in order to optimize their programs. Programmer cycles are a lot more valuable than machine cycles, and here more power is a good, not a bad thing.
Ace42 said:
I mean Samsung's SIII has a Quadcpu, but I doubt that's even necessary, what's wrong with staying in the dualcore/single range and focusing on improving the UI and general performance!? ...It's just hard to understand the logic behind increasing the core count/speed without actually fixing the problems that plagued the software(android in this case)
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The "logic" required is elementary economics. A competitive market causes innovation: each firm has to distinguish itself, and match the features of the others in order to stand a chance. Now, some features are more important in consumers' eyes than others, and in particular, core count/speed are very comprehensible, very easy numbers, and viable to innovate. They have to go up asap in order to compete. And so they have.
This does not mean, of course, that your "problems" must remain. In fact, looking at the S3 demos so far, I haven't yet noticed any lag at all, so perhaps they really did "fix" your problems, as you desired.
Now, for the bashing part.
Ace42 said:
My issue with this change is that I don't feel either are exactly required; for instance, WP7 & iOS are faster than Android, but are able to run on older hardware.
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This comes at a cost of so much less customizability. I find WP7 to be particularly guilty of this: only supports 480x800 resolution, no start screen background or landscape? My Launcher 7 is already more powerful than that and, thanks to not attempting any serious 3D stuff, shows no lag at all.
Ace42 said:
And lets not forget the iPhones normally run at surprisingly low speeds, however they can get a lot done still.
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The iPhone, however, makes us pay with user speed as well. Scrolling is slow, in order to maintain the illusion of smoothness, and the simplistic launcher without widgets forces you to switch around and manage everything yourself, getting data only by clicking on the appropriate app. As I hinted at the beginning, people cycles are so much more valuable than computer cycles, and sacrificing the former for the latter is nothing less than a travesty.
Currently mobile phones are more powerful than my laptops and i think this will not change. In the next few years we will have quad-core processors in watches
goompas said:
Currently mobile phones are more powerful than my laptops and i think this will not change. In the next few years we will have quad-core processors in watches
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completely agree
Google sells ads, not software, they don't really give a crap about optimizing it to the max. They leave this dirty job to OEMs, and OEMs want to sell hardware, so they only optimize it for the tiny bit that is strictly necessary in order to sell. They'd rather make better hardware than better software, and no need to blame them: they just do what they know better. Microsoft and Apple instead sell either software or a complete package of both software and hardware, so guess why they care more about it...just my 2 cents. Btw, not that one approach is better than the other, choice is good, you pick what you want.
Sent from my Lumia 800 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App
vnvman said:
Google sells ads, not software, they don't really give a crap about optimizing it to the max. They leave this dirty job to OEMs... Microsoft and Apple instead sell either software or a complete package of both software and hardware, so guess why they care more about it...just my 2 cents.
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This analysis doesn't make sense (at least, not as gross as it is right now). A company optimizes software when there's some form of competitive pressure, not because they "sell software". Just look at internet explorer: that didn't get seriously worked on for years, until alternative browsers started to become rightfully popular (that is, while microsoft is surely a software company, they still managed not to "give a crap").
Maybe you mean to say that companies only bother to improve something so that it's "good enough" to face off against the competition - and that's pretty much true. For example, after grabbing the market share, apple has only been innovating just hard enough not to be too far behind its competition.
Maybe you also mean to say that companies innovate better, the closer their incentives are aligned with the innovation. This is also true, but highly misleading. For one thing, the factor most affecting one's incentives is not "the thing they are selling", but (you guessed it from above) competition. Selling software or hardware when you have a monopoly, for instance, gives you little or no incentive to innovate (whereas your criteria would've suggested the opposite).
Mind you, I think you are hitting on something; it just requires a much more thorough analysis of the incentives than just "are they selling software or ads?"
And the incentive situation is itself weird. On one hand, android ad profit is (supposedly) pretty low for google, but on the other hand, they are able to delegate the whole manufacturing and execution to other firms. Fewer rewards, but also lower costs. They do have the majority of the phone market right now (getting dangerously close to monopoly there), but this is a fragile equilibrium, with tablets a whole 'nother story. And, since they are dying to get more stock phones out (with those giant "Google" permanant search bars), one can indeed argue that they've started to care not only about selling ads, but the whole damn thing. It's gotten to the point where they need to improve stock itself (and probably the phones too, hence the motorola acquisition + multiple Nexii partnership) in order to improve their ads. And so you see that the incentives may not be nearly as maligned as you'd originally supposed.
I think that we can only benefit from this race
thebobp said:
First, for the dispassionate stuff:
Developers should be able to be "lazy" with programming: you don't see anyone going back into assembly in order to optimize their programs. Programmer cycles are a lot more valuable than machine cycles, and here more power is a good, not a bad thing.
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Being "lazy" is the reason why so many Android apps run poorly across the board; fine, I understand more power allows you to offload more work to the cpu, but that doesn't mean that's the correct method. If I were to make an app for a Dual environment I would specifically make sure each core is sharing the burden. When Dual core phones & Ginger were(and still are) united, the result was simply stunning—Ginger was definitely not optimized for dualcores. And it showed, my Sensation was so laggy under 2.3.x, it was so disheartening to see my single core devices could challenge the dual beast with ease.
thebobp said:
Now, some features are more important in consumers' eyes than others, and in particular, core count/speed are very comprehensible, very easy numbers, and viable to innovate.
This does not mean, of course, that your "problems" must remain. In fact, looking at the S3 demos so far, I haven't yet noticed any lag at all, so perhaps they really did "fix" your problems, as you desired.
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The average consumer doesn't know or can't even comprehend the raw power that certain SoCs are capable of, so I doubt they care if X phone has 2GHz and the other has 1Ghz. Apple normally doesn't boast about the CPU count in commercials, they boast about their OS & siri, that's how they win over millions each year. Everyone and their grandmothers know how flawless iOS is. Now I know I'm bashing Android severely, though I am a long time Android user and these are some of my views.
thebobp said:
This comes at a cost of so much less customizability. I find WP7 to be particularly guilty of this: only supports 480x800 resolution, no start screen background or landscape? My Launcher 7 is already more powerful than that and, thanks to not attempting any serious 3D stuff, shows no lag at all.
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True, WP7 offers the bare minimum when it comes to customization, which is an unfortunate sacrifice for speed. And Microsoft has set HW limitations to prevent fragmentation, which if I may, is devastating the Android market. We have Exynos over there, Snapdragon under there, and Tegra round yonder, and a large variety of screen types.
thebobp said:
The iPhone, however, makes us pay with user speed as well. Scrolling is slow, in order to maintain the illusion of smoothness, and the simplistic launcher without widgets forces you to switch around and manage everything yourself, getting data only by clicking on the appropriate app. As I hinted at the beginning, people cycles are so much more valuable than computer cycles, and sacrificing the former for the latter is nothing less than a travesty.
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Scrolling is slow? Are you using the 1st iPhone or something? Last time I tried my friend's 4S is was quite speedy, iOS has always been the fastest mobile OS available. If memory serves, iOS has also been GPU accelerated since the old days, a feature relatively new to Android and maybe WP7. I pretty sure you can visit every Android forum on XDA & at least 10 users will report that they have lag in X, Y, Z app. However if you did a poll with random iOS users I doubt if you would even find a black sheep.
Hello,
(excuse me for errors in my language)
Do you think we have reach the limits of performance and usability with the latest hardware available on the market for our smartphone ?
We can put it this way: Do you think it is still useful to buy smartphone with more powerful hardware than S4 or this type of phone ?
They are definitly smooth, and for their use, I think pay for more is useless.
But maybe their use will change, they will somehow replace our desktop pc in the way we can connect them to screen and mouse everywhere we go (I know that ubuntu touch already does this).
Thanks
I'm sure we haven't reached out limits. Android owns the phone market right now and I'm sure it will go a long way. As for the price the price will always be crap. I think the highest phone for a no contract I have seen was a iPhone 5 for 700. I'm sure the prices will keep going up.
Sent from my LG-LG730 using xda app-developers app
The industry will always strive to develop faster, smaller and more efficient hardware. And software developers will always find new ways to make use of that hardware.
Smartphones are becoming more and more multi-purpose platforms. With USB OTG, this direction is clearly defined. The increasing screen size is also a product of that. You can already use many phones as a more grown-up multimedia device, connected to your AV equipment and external controllers. This opens up a whole different arena, both in regards to software possibilities, and harware requirements accordngly.
There really is no real limit as to how far this train will go - especially considering the ammount of money people are willing to pay for their phones. And with the chinese marked and developement coming rushing up like a mountain on wheels from behind - both development time and price level is likely to drop a little, rather than increase.
Moore's law. A model that predicts the experiential increase of computing power. As for cellphones, I think it is about demand and supply. The processors in the latest phones have reached a limit threshold on what a consumer would use it for. Before when processors was lacking, consumers wanted better ones resulting in manufacturer competition on who has the fastest phone. First the 1GHz race then the quad core race and now we have 2GHz quad cores. There is now not as much demand for faster CPUs in phones atleast so manufacturers and focusing on other areas to compete for who has the best phone such as better battery, better screen, fast 4G, lighter, etc.
What is it that makes a phone a great phone? There are a dozen measurable factors and a dozen more that are purely subjective.
Price
There are many things that you’ll want to take into consideration when buying a new phone, but one of the biggest is price. Most newer devices will run you quite a bit, but if you’re riding a two-year contract — or just happen to find the right deal — you can snag one of our top picks at a great price. Even if you’re on a budget, you still have some great options for a new phone. If you’re really in a crunch, you can also go with an older phone instead of the latest tech. This will save you some cash and still get you a great device.
Display
Displays on smartphones are all across the board these days, and what size you get really depends on just what you’ll be using your phone for. People that like gaming or watching videos may want to go for a large screen, while those that are just using social networks and email may not need one quite as big.
You’ll also want to consider things like contrast, saturation, and screen brightness. Some screens may look great to you but not to others — and vice versa — so it’s always best to take a look at a few for comparison to see which fits you best. There are different types of display technologies like IPS-LCD and AMOLED as well that will affect a display’s appearance both indoors and out.
Software
If you're here looking for the best "Android" phone then you know each of these phones is running on the same basic system — right now, either Android 5.1 Lollipop or 6.0 Marshmallow. Being on a newer version of Android is always better, but it's also important to make note of the customizations each manufacturer make to Android.
Samsung, LG, Motorola, etc. all make varying amounts of changes to Android, each trying to add more value to differentiate the phone from the group. This may be as simple as a suite of manufacturer apps and a few visual tweaks, all the way up to a complete redesign of the interface, animations and stock apps.
It can be hard to determine which manufacturer adaptation of Android is right for you, so be sure to check out the phone in person if possible or at least see the software selling points listed by the company to get a feel for it.
Battery
Perhaps the single most important feature to consider when buying a new smartphone is battery life. The battery is the heart of your phone when on the go, so 99 percent of the time bigger is always better, though it does mean heavier phones and longer charging times (though quick-charging technology has helped with that).
Everyone will use their phone in different ways, so you’ll have to take into account how you will be using your phone to know just how much battery you’ll be able to squeak out in a day. Watching videos, streaming music, or playing games all use a lot of battery, while web browsing and sending emails won’t have the same immediate effect on battery life.
Batteries are measured in milliampere-hour (mAh) and the higher the number, the bigger the battery. Most newer devices will make it through a day of casual use, but heavy users many run short if they don’t find the time to top-off throughout the day. There are plenty of things you can do to prolong your battery life as well — turning down the screen brightness, disabling features like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when not in use, or just limiting your overall usage time. Charging up when you can doesn’t hurt either. We’ve got plenty morebattery-saving tips which should help regardless of which phone you end up buying.
Camera
It used to be that we used a standalone camera for taking photos, but as technology evolves, more and more people are using their smartphone camera as their full-time camera. If you’re one of these people, you’ll want to make sure that the camera in your device is up to the challenge so you get the best shots no matter what the situation may be.
Most phones will have a rear and front camera, the later being used for “selfies” or things like video chat — meaning the rear stats are what really matter in the long run. Most decent smartphone cameras come in at at least 8MP, with some devices sporting cameras of 13MP, 16MP or more. The camera software on the device can also play a big part in just how good your photos look as well. Take a gander at our photography hints to take some really great snaps with your phone.
THE BOTTOM LINE
This is by no means a conclusive ranking of all Android phones — these are what we consider the best best. Certainly, they're often on the more expensive side, but you'll get what you're paying for. High-end specs and experiences come with high-end prices.