How to Choose the Right Smartphone Within Your Budget
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SHOOTOUT HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIghT SMARTPHONE WITHIN YOUR BUDGET The smartphone industry has developed and progressed dramatically since the days when the display in your mobile phone was required only to show the number of the person calling. Let’s look at the latest developments and the key parameters to keep in mind while choosing a smartphone these days — Anuj Sharma ith the progression of the smartphone industry, gradually Display Quality more features are continuously being added/upgraded The display of a smart phone is one of the most important aspect Wto do multilple tasks, such as to view emails, click and to consider when buying a new device because it’s the part where record photos and videos, etc. And with added features there you’ll spend the most time directly interacting with the phone. The is always a question as to which smart phone should one buy smartphone industry rotates around various names to describe the and for what price. There are several aspects to consider while viewing experience on your smartphone screen viz. IPS, LCD, LED, choosing a smart phone. Here’s what you should look out for, Retina, AMOLED etc. Let’s find out what is meant by each of these based on our experience of reviewing phones over the past six terms and how they are different from others. months or so. Also do check for protective coating on screens like Gorilla Glass that prevents breaking your smartphone screen from accidental The Ideal Screen Size drops or Anti-Scratch Resistant/Fingerprint coating that protects Nowadays mostly all manufacturers are targeting bigger screen the screen from scratches or fingerprint smudges. sizes and this has become a key trend. The bigger screen is helpful in all aspects of mobile usage; be it playing games, watching LCD Display videos, typing messages, video chats or using social sites. We can An LCD panel uses light modulating properties of liquid crystals. broadly categorize the screen size in three formats: These liquid crystals don’t emit light of their own thus a backlight is required to generate light. A grid of IC is used to control each Between 3 to 4.4 inches pixel by applying electric charge to them. Colors are created using • Compact design thus is easy to carry in pocket red, blue and green subpixels and are then blended by various • Can be easily used with one hand without stretching your thumb degrees to produce different combination of colors. • Great for checking mails • LCD panels produce a wider color gamut due to blending of • Key models: Apple iPhone 5S, Samsung Galaxy Star Pro, primary colors but wider range is not better all the time as it BlackBerry Z10 etc. can produce oversaturated images and images can also look distorted at times. Between 4.5 to 5.4 Inches • LCD screens produce realistic colors but do not offer as wide a • Can be used for all purposes like watching videos, playing games contrast ratio as AMOLED screens. • Good battery life • LCD panels do not produce deep or clear blacks. • Fairly comfortable to use with one hand, depending on the button placement. • Examples: iPhone 6, HTC One M9, Galaxy S6, etc. Budget phones TFT-LCD Display like Lenovo A6000 Plus, Redmi 2, Micromax Canvas Xpress 2 A thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT LCD) is a also fall under this category. variant of a liquid-crystal display (LCD) that utilizes thin-film transistor (TFT) technology to enhance image qualities such as Screen Size 5.5 Inches or More addressability and contrast. • Great for multimedia consumption • Most common type of display used in budget smart phones and • Great for reading ebooks due to larger screen size also comes in some good tablets and phones. • Requires two hand operation • The TFT-LCD display has narrow viewing angles and also if you • Allows to run two apps simultaneously look at them from the center it can be hard to see what’s on • Larger battery life the display. • Examples: iPhone 6 Plus and LG G4, and the 5.7-inch Galaxy • You will also have poor visibility in direct sunlight. Note 4. • Color richness is dull. pcquest.com twitter.com/pcquest facebook.com/pcquest linkd.in/pcquest [email protected] MARCH 2016 PCQUEST 63 SHOOTOUT IPS (In-Plane Switching) Display Camera Quality IPS is a screen technology used for LCD displays and is a marked If you’re looking for a good camera phone, don’t go blindly for improvement over TFT-LCD panels. In-plane switching includes the idea that more megapixels will give you better pictures or by organizing and switching the molecules of the liquid crystal (LC) promotion like best camera phone or best selfie phone. Instead, layer between the glass substrates and the movement of these look for phones that pack good camera optics like aperture, speed molecules is in parallel instead of perpendicular. and other relevant features. • IPS displays wider viewing angles and good color reproduction. • If you want to capture decent shot indoors without using the • IPS panel display consistent, more accurate colors from almost flash look for a larger aperture. For instance, the Galaxy S6 all viewing angles. has an f/1.9 aperture and the LG G4 is rated for f/1.8, while • IPS displays are costlier than TFT-LCD and are most common in the iPhone 6 is f/2.2. A lower number means a larger aperture, High-end smart phones. which typically translates to better low-light performance. • One of the disadvantage of IPS panels is they consume more • Look for optical image stabilization to reduce blur and improve power. low-light performance. • If you want to capture long distant objects clearly, look for higher AMOLED Display optical zoom. An AMOLED display consists of an active matrix of OLED pixels in • For shooting in low light look for dual tone LED flashlight for good order to produce light (luminescence) upon electrical activation low light images, some smartphone have front LED flashlight. that have been incorporated in a thin-film-transistor (TFT) array, • The Panorama feature is useful when you are mostly out on which functions as a series of switches to control the current vacation and want to capture a wide angle view. flowing to each individual pixel. Good photos are a result of adequate megapixels, good lens and • AMOLED displays deliver higher refresh rates and consume sensor technology, as well as high-end processor chipsets. The less power smartphones like OnePlus 2,Nokia Lumia 1520, the Apple iPhones, • AMOLED screens have brilliant color reproduction, higher Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, LG G4, Honor 6 Plus, ZTE Nubia Z9 Mini, brightness levels and good contrast ratio. Sony Xperia Z3 and Xiaomi Mi 4i have a good camera. • Also since the light in the display screen comes from individual pixels instead of being produced from a backlight, thus to create Operating Systems a black color, relevant pixels are dimmed off or turned off giving The most popular OSes are Google’s Android, Apple’s iOS, deep black. Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS, and Blackberry OS. Super AMOLED Benefits ofA ndroid Super AMOLED is Samsung’s defintion for an AMOLED display and • Most popular OS and is available on a wide price range of uses Samsung’s PenTile matrix Layout. smartphones. • Color gamut is high, images are much more granular, clear • It is an open OS, which means it’s easy to customize with and sharp in Super AMOLED and color richness is higher than widgets, launchers, your choice of keyboard and more. LCD panels. • Many more choices than iOS or Windows Phone when it comes • Easy to view in direct sunlight. to design, display size, specs, capabilities and price. • Super AMOLED screens have battery saving efficiencies. Benefits of iOS Retina Display • The biggest reason to opt for an iOS device is its selection of Retina Display is a term used by Apple for screens that have a apps. Apple’s App Store tends to get the hottest apps and games pixel density high enough that the human eye is incapable to before Android, partly because developers have an easier time identify individual pixels at a typical viewing distance. The term targeting a smaller set of devices that have similar specs. is specifically used for several Apple products including iPhones, • Family Sharing lets up to six people in your family share iTunes, iPads, MacBooks etc. books and app purchases. • Retina display screens are good, sharp, colorful and bright. • iPhone users enjoy the broadest array of accessories, because • These have wide, sharper viewing angles and colors are much there’s less variation in design from one model to the next. more vivid and vibrant and the Apple’s Retina display is hard to beat in terms of pixel density and resolution. Benefits of Windows Phone When buying a phone, the screen will always be a factor, but • Offers some compelling features on its own, such as a dynamic it isn’t going to be the only deciding factor. The ideal option Start screen and the Cortana digital assistant, but they haven’t must depend on what you will use your screen for. If you want been enough to sway shoppers. to watch movies, play games AMOLED will be a better choice • Only available on select number of devices, mainly on Lumia giving higher contrast ratio, and rich colors. On the other hand phones. if web surfing, document viewing is more important to you than LCDs and Retina Displays will be more preferable Benefits of BlackBerry OS offering crisper texts and making it easier to read on screen • There’s a BlackBerry Hub that aggregates everything from email for long periods.