I have been saying this since 2015’ish that the smartphone form as a slate is hitting a wall. Everyone now looks exactly like the rest – in short a plateau – but I am glad that some brands are doing a lot of good in the imaging department, especially some nifty ones from Huawei and today, Samsung.
How about those dramatic selfie from iPhone. That makes full use of the face recognition software to map a face and determine how the light falls to the face in different scenario. That is a good direction too. See? I am no iPhone hater…I hate the marketing messages yes…but I do applaud good use of tech.
All these improvements really makes the compact camera looks dated. Heck even the traditional cameras look ancient. These happened because the phone uses a small sensor and there need to be other ways around the physical (and physics) limitations.
Animoji? And I played with the Samsung version of it (heng ah not animals) and I must say it is fun while it lasts (a hands on review is coming tonight).
I know we tech-geeks have a lot of demands and for the most part, consumers need to only know what phone to buy at the end point of their phone contract and so any improvements consumers see is huge no matter how you put it so to them it is not a plateau.
We still have to acknowledge that the smartphone market is hitting a plateau and those that have deep pockets can make different things. But would a feature stick? Would it be practical? Would that help to differentiate the brand?
2018 is the year when some brands starts to be different from the rest through innovation (some retro stuff do help but I really wish it is a smartphone in a retro outfit)
To read more:
https://www.techgoondu.com/2018/02/26/mobile-world-congress-2018-phone-makers-seem-reaching-plateau/
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