SMARTPHONES

A smartphone or smart phone is a mobile phone with an advanced mobile operating system which combines features of a personal computer operating system with other features useful for mobile or handheld use. They typically combine the features of a cell phone with those of other popular mobile devices, such as personal digital assistant (PDA), media player and GPS navigation unit. Most smartphones can access the Internet, have a touch screen user interface, can run third-party apps, music players and are camera phones. Most Smartphones produced from 2012 onwards also have high-speed mobile broadband 4G LTE internet, motion sensors, and mobile payment mechanisms.

A smartphone is expected to have a more powerful CPU, more storage space, more RAM, greater connectivity options and larger screen than a regular cell phone.

Definition - What does Smartphone mean?A smartphone is a mobile phone with highly advanced features. A typical smartphone has a high-resolution touch screen display, WiFi connectivity, Web browsing capabilities, and the ability to accept sophisticated applications. The majority of these devices run on any of these popular mobile operating systems: Android, Symbian, iOS, BlackBerry OS and Windows Mobile.

Explaination:

A smartphone is expected to have a more powerful CPU, more storage space, more RAM, greater connectivity options and larger screen than a regular cell phone.

High-end smartphones now run on processors with high processing speeds coupled with low power consumptions. That means, they’ll allow you to play 3D games, browse the Web, update your Facebook account, call, and text much longer than you used to.

In addition to the features mentioned earlier, smartphones are also equipped with innovative sensors like accelerometers or even gyrscopes. Accelerometers are responsible for displaying screens in portrait and landscape mode, while gyroscopes make it possible for games to support motion-based navigation.

The earliest touch screen smartphones used resistive touchscreen displays, which required the use of slender pointing objects known as styli (or stylus in singular form). Most of the later models however, like the iPhone and most Android phones, employ capacitive displays, which feature multi-touch finger gestures.

Some vendor or analyst-suggested requirements for designation as a smartphone:

A recognized mobile operating system, such as Nokia's Symbian, Google's Android, Apple's iOS or the BlackBerry OS

Internet connectivity A mobile browser

The ability to sync more than one email account to the device Embedded memory

Hardware and/or software-based QWERTY keyboard Wireless synchronization with other devices, such as laptop or desktop

computers The ability to download applications and run them independently Support for third-party applications The ability to run multiple applications simultaneously Touchscreen Wi-Fi

Other smartphone or cell phone features include: Texting Digital cameras, typically with video capability Gaming Unified messaging Personal information management GPS (global positioning system) Remote control of computers

The History of Smartphones

The box for the Ericsson GS 88 “Penelope”

The very first concept of a smartphone is said to have been envisioned back in the mid-1970s, but that idea didn’t come into fruition until almost 20 years later when IBM’s Simon Personal Communicator first showed its face in 1992. Simon had a monochrome touchscreen, a stylus, and a charging base station. When using data, you could expect to charge the phone after about 60 minutes of use.

IBM’s Simon Personal Communicator The Nokia E7 poses with its ancestor, the Nokia 9000

Communicator from 1996

Nokia entered the not-yet-developed smartphone space in 1996. It released the Nokia 9000 Communicator to the world, a 1.5-inch thick, 397g phone with an outward facing dial pad, navigation keys, and monochromatic display. Unlike Simon, from the outside, the 9000 Communicator looked almost like a run-of-the-mill cell phone from 1996. Along the left edge, however, was a hinge which opened to a full QWERTY keyboard and physical navigation buttons flanking a much larger display (also monochrome).

The Nokia 9000 Communicator – also not officially called a smartphone at the time – was capable of email, fax, Web browsing (a feature Simon lacked), word processing, and even spreadsheets. Humming along under the hood was an Intel 24MHz i386 CPU, and it came with just 8MB of memory.

The term “smartphone” would not be coined until one year later, when Ericsson released the GS 88 concept, otherwise known as Penelope. Its outward appearance

and design were strikingly similar to that of the 9000 Communicator, though it housed a touchscreen on the inside and came with a stylus.

Devices that combined telephony and computing were first conceptualized by Tesla 1909 and Theodore Paraskevakos in 1971 and patented in 1974, and were offered for sale beginning in 1993. He was the first to introduce the concepts of intelligence, data processing and visual display screens into telephones. In 1971, Paraskevakos, working with Boeing in Huntsville, Alabama, demonstrated a transmitter and receiver that provided additional ways to communicate with remote equipment, however it did not yet have general purpose PDA applications in a wireless device typical of smartphones. They were installed at Peoples' Telephone Company in Leesburg, Alabama and were demonstrated to several telephone companies. The original and historic working models are still in the possession of Paraskevakos.

The first mobile phone to incorporate PDA features was an IBM prototype developed in 1992 and demonstrated that year at the COMDEX computer industry trade show. A refined version of the product was marketed to consumers in 1994 by BellSouth under the name Simon Personal Communicator. The Simon was the first cellular device that can be properly referred to as a "smartphone", although it was not called that in 1994. In addition to its ability to make and receive cellular phone calls, Simon was able to send and receive faxes and emails and included several other apps like address book, calendar, appointment scheduler, calculator, world time clock, and note pad through its touch screen display. Simon is the first smartphone to be incorporated with the features of a PDA.

The term "smart phone" first appeared in print in 1995, for describing AT&T's "PhoneWriter Communicator" as a "smart phone".

PDAs

Main article: Personal digital assistant

In the late 1990s, many mobile phone users carried a separate dedicated PDA device, running early versions of operating systems such as Palm OS, BlackBerry OS or

Windows CE/Pocket PC. These operating systems would later evolve into mobile operating systems.

In early 2000, the Ericsson R380 was released by Ericsson Mobile Communications, and was the first device marketed as a "smartphone". It combined the functions of a mobile phone and a PDA, supported limited web browsing with a resistive touchscreen utilizing a stylus.

In early 2001, Palm, Inc. introduced the Kyocera 6035, which combined a PDA with a mobile phone and operated on Verizon. It also supported limited web browsing.

Smartphones before Android, iOS and BlackBerry, typically ran on Symbian, which was originally developed by Psion. It was the world's most widely used smartphone operating system until the last quarter of 2010.

Mobile Operating System

A Mobile operating system (or Mobile OS) is an operating system for smartphones, tablets, PDAs, or other mobile devices. While computers such as the typical laptop are mobile, the operating systems usually used on them are not considered mobile ones as they were originally designed for bigger stationary desktop computers that historically did not have or need specific "mobile" features. This distinction is getting blurred in some newer operating systems that are hybrids made for both uses.

Mobile operating systems combine features of a personal computeroperating system with other features useful for mobile or handheld use; usually including, and most of the following considered essential in modern mobile systems; a touchscreen, cellular, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi,GPS mobile navigation, camera, video camera, speech recognition,voice recorder, music player, near field communication and infrared blaster.

Mobile devices with mobile communications capabilities (e.g. smartphones) contain two mobile operating systems – the main user-facing software platform is supplemented by a second low-level proprietary real-time operating system which operates the radio and other hardware. Research has shown that these low-level systems may contain a range of security vulnerabilities permitting maliciousbase stations to gain high levels of control over the mobile device.

Android

Android (operating system)

Google Android OS

Android (based on the Linux Kernel) is from Google Inc. It has the largest installed base worldwide on smartphones. In fact it is the most popular operating system for general purpose computers (a category that includes, say, "desktop"Windows and "mobile"), while Android is currently not popular regular ("desktop") PCs. Android is free and open-source software, while most commonly in actual devices, a large amount ofproprietary software is bundled with it (such as Play Store, Google Search, Google Play Services, Google Music, and so on) are proprietary, licensed proprietary, closed source applications and contract (join the Open Handset Alliance) not to manufacture cellulars that replace Google applications or services.[8]

Android's releases prior to 2.0 (1.0, 1.5, 1.6) were used exclusively on mobile phones. Android 2.x releases were mostly used for mobile phones but also some tablets. Android 3.0 was a tablet-oriented release and does not officially run on mobile phones. The current Android version is 5.0.

Android's releases are named after sweets or dessert items (except for first and second release):

1.1 - Alpha 1.2 - Beta 1.5 - Cupcake 1.6 - Donut 2.0.x & 2.1 - Eclair 2.2.x - Frozen Yogurt ("Froyo") 2.3.x - Ginger Bread (Minor UI Tweak) 3.x.x - Honeycomb (Major UI revamp) 4.0.x - Ice Cream Sandwich (Minor UI Tweak) 4.1.x, 4.2.x & 4.3.x - Jelly Bean 4.4.4 - KitKat 5.0.1 & 5.1.1 - Lollipop (Major UI revamp) 6.0 Beta 4 - Android M (Marshmallow)

iOS

iOS (previously known as iPhone OS) is from Apple Inc.[6] It has the second largest installed base worldwide on smartphones, but the largest profits, due to aggressive price competition between Android-based manufacturers.[9] It is closed source and proprietary and built on open source Darwin core OS. The Apple iPhone, iPod Touch,iPad and second-generation Apple TV all use iOS, which is derived from OS X.

Native third party applications were not officially supported until the release of iOS 2.0 on July 11, 2008. Before this, "jailbreaking" allowed third party applications to be installed, and this method is still available.

Currently all iOS devices are developed by Apple and manufactured by Foxconn or another of Apple's partners.

As of 2014, the global market share of iOS was 15.4%.[10]

Current iOS's version list:

iPhone OS 1.x iPhone OS 2.x iPhone OS 3.x iOS 4.x iOS 5.x iOS 6.x iOS 7.x (Major UI revamp) iOS 8.x iOS 9.x

Windows Phone

Windows Phone (Soon to be Windows 10 Mobile) is from Microsoft. It is closed source and proprietary. It has third largest installed base on smartphones behind Android and iOS.

On February 15, 2010, Microsoft unveiled its next-generation mobile OS, Windows Phone. The new mobile OS includes a completely new over-hauled UI inspired by Microsoft's "Metro Design Language". It includes full integration of Microsoft services such as OneDrive and Office, Xbox Music, Xbox Video, Xbox Live games and Bing, but also integrates with many other non-Microsoft services such as Facebookand Google accounts. Windows Phone devices are made primarily byMicrosoft Mobile/Nokia, along with HTC, Samsung.

As of 21 January 2015, Microsoft has announced that the Windows Phone brand will be phased out and replaced with Windows 10 Mobile. It will primarily aim to bring tighter integration and unification with its PC counterpart Windows 10, and provide a platform for both smartphones, and small tablets under 8 inches in screen size.

By the end of 2014, Windows Phone global market share was 2.7%.[11]

Current Windows Phone's version list:

Windows Phone 7 Windows Phone 7.5 Windows Phone 7.8 (Minor UI tweak) Windows Phone 8 (GDR1, GDR2 & GDR3) & (Minor UI tweak) Windows Phone 8.1 (GDR1 & GDR2) & (Minor UI tweak) Windows 10 Mobile developer preview 14219 (Major UI revamp)

BlackBerry

BlackBerry 10 (based on the QNX OS) is from BlackBerry. As a smart phone OS, it is closed source and proprietary.

It is used mostly by government employees.[dubious – discuss]BlackBerry 10 is the next generation platform for BlackBerry smartphones and tablets. All phones and tablets are manufactured by Blackberry itself.

Once one of the dominant platforms in the world, its global market share has been reduced to 0.4% by the end of 2014.[11]

Current BlackBerry 10's version list:

BlackBerry 10.0 BlackBerry 10.1 BlackBerry 10.2 BlackBerry 10.3 (Major UI revamp)

RAM( Random Access Memory)

When comparing the performance of different smartphones and tablets, many people just look at the processor. That is, they just look at the processor’s clock speed and the number of coresthat it has. In reality, there are many other factors that have an influence on performance – a key one being the amount of RAM. In this article, we look at RAM on smartphones and tablets. We’ll discover the purpose of RAM and look at how popular devices compare for RAM. We’ll also look at how you can manage RAM usage on your Android device.

RAM: Super-Fast, Short-Term Memory “RAM” stands for Random Access Memory. It’s a key component in every smartphone and tablet and it plays a vital role in ensuring the performance and stability of your device. RAM can have a huge effect on how smoothly your phone runs: it’s arguably more important than the speed of your processor and the number of cores that it has. The latest high-end smartphones have up to 2GB of RAM storage. Unlike other types of storage, such as internal storage and Micro SD card storage, RAM isn’t designed as a place where you can store your files or your photos for the long term. Instead, it’s a space for your smartphone to store things in the short-term. This could be data that you’re currently working on, or information that you’re likely to need very soon. The best way of thinking about RAM is to think of it as the equivalent of your brain’s short term memory. Like the brain’s short term memory, RAM is very easy to access and is fast. However, data doesn’t stay there very long – after a while it’ll be replaced with something else. This is in contrast to internal storage and Micro SD card storage. These are equivalent to your brain’s long-term memory: there’s a much bigger capacity and any data that’s stored there will last for a long time. However, it can take longer to access this information.

Another way of thinking about RAM is to consider your study. You may have an entire bookshelf of reference material that you’re interested in, but they’ll only be a few pieces of paper on your desk. The material that’s on your desk is like RAM: it’s fast and easy to access because everything’s within touching distance. You can work on it, and you can edit it. If you need to look something up that’s new or different, you’ll need to get up and walk to your bookshelf. This is a place where data can be stored and indexed for the long-term.

RAM: Just How Fast Is It? The main benefit of RAM storage is that it’s super-quick. Compared to accessing data from the internal memory or an SD card, it takes just a fraction of the time to access data from RAM storage. With RAM, data can be read 6 to 10 times faster. The operating system on your smartphone is responsible for managing the RAM allocation. It’ll try and maximise the performance of your device by placing applications and files that you use regularly into the RAM. By making these files faster to access, loading times are reduced and the performance on your device is improved. As an example of the benefits of RAM, consider an instant messaging app such as WhatsApp. These apps are used periodically through the day when you want to talk with your friends. An instant messaging app like WhatsApp consumes about 25MB of memory. If the application is to be loaded from your phone’s internal storage, it would take about 1.3 seconds for the application to load. Whilst this could be acceptable the first time you open the application, it would quickly become annoying to wait 1.3 seconds each time you want to reply to a message. To speed things up, your operating system notices that you use WhatsApp on a regular basis and loads the application into RAM. From RAM, it takes just 0.2 seconds to re-load the application. This means you can reply to your friends faster: there are fewer delays as you wait for your phone to catch up and your phone behaves more responsively. The read speeds on different types of storage compare as follows:

Form of Storage Speed Time to load 25MBRAM Memory 1,066Mbit/s 0.2 secondsInternal Storage (NAND Flash)

160Mbit/s 1.3 seconds

Micro SD Card 120Mbit/s 1.7 secondsCloud Storage (via 4G) 15Mbit/s 13 secondsCloud Storage (via 3G) 4Mbit/s 50 seconds

Comparison of data read speeds from RAM, internal storage, micro SD card and cloud storage.

Smartphones: How Much RAM Do They Have? Bill Gates is often quoted (or misquoted) as saying that “640K [of RAM] ought to be enough for anybody”. Whilst it can be possible to build a smartphone with limited amounts of RAM, performance will always be sluggish as everything needs to be loaded from internal storage. Handsets with greater amounts of RAM can avoid the performance bottleneck of internal storage by making use of RAM storage. When comparing today’s smartphones, there’s a large variation in the amount of RAM that they ship with. On phones with an insufficient amount of RAM, you’ll notice sluggish performance due to a greater number of trips to the internal memory storage. You may notice a greater number of “Loading…” and “Please Wait” screens – especially if you’re playing multimedia content or games with a large number of graphics. Today’s high-end smartphones have at least 1GB of RAM. On lower-priced handsets, you’ll find as little as 256MB. For decent performance, we would recommend choosing a handset that has at least 512MB of RAM. Smartphone RAM Storage Price RangeApple iPhone 3G S 256MB Entry LevelApple iPhone 4 & 4S 512MB Mid-RangeApple iPhone 5 1GB High EndHTC One 2GB High EndHuawei Ascend G330 512MB Entry LevelGoogle Nexus 4 2GB High EndNokia Lumia 920 1GB High End

Nokia Lumia 620 512MB Entry LevelSamsung Galaxy Ace 278MB Entry LevelSamsung Galaxy Note II 2GB High EndSamsung Galaxy S III 1GB High EndSamsung Galaxy Young 768MB Entry LevelSony Xperia Z 2GB High End

Comparison of smartphones in terms of RAM storage. Entry-level handsets tend to have less RAM: this can lead to sluggish performance even if the phone has a good processor.

Task Killers & RAM: Performance If you’ve got an Android-based device, you can manage the RAM usage on your phone using a task manager application. On Samsung Galaxy devices, the built-in task manager can be accessed by holding down on the home button and tapping on the task manager button. This is the button with a pie chart icon. On devices from other manufacturers, try a third-party task manager such as Advanced Task Manager.

Some websites claim that performance can be improved on Android by clearing your RAM on a regular basis. Whilst it would seem intuitive that having more memory available would give better performance, this is not the case. Android is designed so that your phone’s RAM allocation is managed automatically. To maximise performance, the applications and files that you access regularly are kept within the RAM. This minimises the number of trips to the slower internal storage. As RAM consumes the same amount of power regardless of whether it’s used, RAM that’s left empty is simply wasted. To minimise the number of trips to the internal storage, it’s in your device’s best interest to use as much RAM as possible. Only as you use new applications will the operating system remove the oldest ones from memory. If you clear your RAM manually, your handset will need to copy data from the internal storage again. This will lead to slower performance and will increase your battery consumption. For this reason, using a task manager to clear RAM will usually slow down your phone and is not recommended in the majority of cases.

ROM( Read Only Memory)

ROM or Read Only Memory is more permanent by nature. What goes in there stays there. The ROM or read only memory forms a part of your internal storage and that part is not Accessible for users to write on and is thus referred to as Read Only Memory. The rest of your internal storage is where you store Apps and can store media files and other documents.The memory type used is basically Flash memory or technically EEPROM (electrically erasable and programmable read only memory). This type of memory can be read in blocks and deleted in blocks. The word EEPROM is generally used to describe those with non flash memory EEPROMS

This ROM part of your internal storage is where your Android operating system resides. Also OEM’s add some preinstalled apps in this memory sections which cannot be deleted on users end either. This is the reason why you don’t get full internal memory as advertised on the Box, because a part of it has been used to house O.S. and preinstalled apps. The rest of the internal storage will be used for storing and downloading Apps which will store this

Smartphones Processors

A Mobile processor is found in mobile computers and smartphones. A CPU chip is designed for portable computers, it is typically housed in a smaller chip package , but more importantly, in order to run cooler, it uses lower than its desktop counterpart and has more sleep mode capability. A Mobile processor can be throttled down to different power levels or sections of the chip can be tuned off entirely when not in use. Further the clock frequency may be stepped down under low processor loads. This stepping down conserves power and prolongs battery life.

Quad-core processors have made their first foray into Android devices. The over-whelming response to theSamsung Galaxy SIII and the HTC One prove that this leap in technology has been successful to an extent. Multiple cores make an impact on consumers who think this will give their phones better processing power. Some believe that double the cores means double the performance. That, of course, is not necessarily true; smartphone performance does not depend solely on the number of cores. There are other factors like battery and memory too.

UNDERSTANDING MULTIPLE CORESThe single-core processors that our phones have used for long did everything single

handedly. But with multi-core processors coming in, the phone's task is divided among multiple cores that do their portion of the job and try to finish the task faster.

HTC ONE S

Display: 4.3-inch AMOLED Processor: 1.7GHz S3 dual

core RAM: 1GB Internal memory: 16GB Camera: 8MP Android: v4.0/ Ice

Cream Sandwich Battery: 1650mAh

HTC ONE XDisplay: 4.7-inch super LCD 2 Processor: 1.5GHz Tegra 3 quad core RAM: 1GB Internal memory: 32GB Camera: 8MP Android: v4.0/ Ice

Cream Sandwich Battery: 1800mAh

HTC ONE VDisplay:3.7-inch super LCD 2 Processor: 1GHz single core RAM: 512MB Internal memory: 4GB Camera: 5MP Android: v4.0/ Ice

Cream Sandwich Battery: 1500mAh

Smartphones Display

The Nokia Lumia 1020 features PureMotion HD+ technology, a ClearBlack display, and supersensitive screen.

The smartphone industry tosses around a whole bucket of names and numbers to describe the viewing experience on your smartphone screen: ClearBlack, 1080p, Retina, AMOLED, supersensitive. And the list goes on.

Some designations are marketing monikers cooked up to give one company an edge; others are more scientific. That isn't to say that flashy names like Apple's Retina Display are worthless and empty. Sometimes the trademarked name masks a unique process too technical to quickly explain.

To make things simpler, here are some common terms you might see attached to smartphone screens, and some factors that actually go into making your screen a standout, like the physical screen materials, LCD versus OLED, brightness, color accuracy, and pixel resolution. Got all that? Good. Now let's dive in.

Common smartphone screensThe terms often used to describe smartphone screens aren't always so clear.

An AMOLED display comes together

Retina Display: Apple's proprietary name for its LCD screen, which serves up a 1,136x640 pixel resolution.

HD Super AMOLED: Samsung's name for its high-definition smartphone displays, which use the OLED screen technology.

1080p: The highest common high-definition screen resolution, measuring 1,920 pixels by 1,080 pixels. Also called "full HD."

720p: The lower high-definition designation, 1,280 by 720 pixels.

Supersensitive or ultrasensitive: A new technology that lets you operate a touch screen with your fingernail or glove.

PureMotion HD+: Nokia's name for its display with 1,280x768-pixel resolution and various properties.

ClearBlack: Nokia's name for an antiglare filter applied to the screen. 

Super LCD: A product name that also describes an LCD screen made in a certain way.

IPS: A type of LCD screen technology known for producing clearer image quality and wider viewing angles, among other traits. It's used in many smartphones.

The anatomy of a smartphone screenBefore we dive in, it's helpful to understand the layout of a smartphone screen. The oversimplified version is that displays are composed of several layers of material, starting backing material and including a lighting element (like the backlight for LCD screens), which is then topped with a TFT (thin-film transistor) layer, which uses voltage-sipping transistors to keep the display's pixels shining until you refresh or change the image.

There's also the touch-sensitive panel; various films and filters that might reduce glare, for instance; and the cover glass, which is often bonded to the touch layer. Gorilla Glass is one designer brand of cover glass.

LCD versus OLEDThere are warring schools of thought between the two types of display technologies: LCDs (which act as valves to allow varying amounts of the backlight through to the viewer) or AMOLED/OLEDs (a different approach that uses "active-matrix organic light-emitting diodes" to directly emit light).

There are complex ins and outs, but in a nutshell, you can think about LCDs and OLEDs as follows:

LCD screens start with an always-on backlight; this technology requires light to create black, white, and colors. High-end LCDs produce the most accurate colors, though their manufacturers sometimes intentionally calibrate LCDs to produce weaker red, blue, and purple shades in order to reduce the device's power consumption.

LCDs generally age slower, with their brightness and color balance holding up fairly well over thousands of hours of use.

OLED, on the other hand, doesn't require any light to produce black, only white and colors. Therefore, it's considered battery-saving (since it requires no energy to create black) and can produce inky blacks. OLEDs are often considered brighter as well, creating punchy hues. As a side effect, OLED screens tend to oversaturate the color green.

OLEDs also age more rapidly than LCDs, according to experts, which means that the red and blue colors deteriorate faster than green, which can further throw the color balance out of whack.

OLEDs can also be expensive to make, and in the past, limited production has caused some manufacturers, like HTC, to switch from AMOLED to LCD screens.

What is IPS?What makes the two differing technologies more confusing is that there are multiple versions of each. For instance, IPS (in-plane switching) is a type of premium LCD technology that's touted for its wide viewing angle and clearer picture. The iPhone 5 is a prime example of a phone using IPS panels.

So what about Super AMOLED?Samsung makes most of the OLED smartphone screens, naming its line Super AMOLED.

These days we see mainly HD Super AMOLED phones with high-pixel resolutions, but Samsung has also made Super AMOLED and Super AMOLED Plus screens; the

Samsung's Galaxy S4 uses an OLED screen; the HTC One

rocks LCD.

shift from Plus to HD Super AMOLED is a controversial one among pixel buffs, and one that quickly becomes technical.

Each screen pixel is actually composed of red, green, and blue subpixels that can turn on and off in combination to create any supported color combination (turn them all on at full blast to shine white).

There are numerous ways to pattern the subpixels. Super AMOLED (and HD Super AMOLED) uses Samsung's PenTile layout and its pattern of red, green, blue, green (RG-BG) subpixels.

PenTile, in fact, uses fewer red and blue subpixels than it does green. As such, PenTile also has fewer subpixels than the typical RGB layout found in LCDs and in AMOLED screens used by other companies. Examine a PenTile screen closely and you might be able to detect a little more image granularity when you're looking at fine details and text. For the most part, though, your eyes fill in the blanks.

Some people preferred Samsung's Super AMOLED Plus pixel arrangement for creating a technically sharper image with three subpixels per pixel, rather than the two subpixels in the non-Plus version that Samsung's flagship phones like the Samsung Galaxy S4 have today.

Samsung

Although Samsung didn't comment for this piece, an employee of Samsung America (but not Samsung Display) has said elsewhere that PenTile is more durable. It's also cheaper to make than Super AMOLED Plus, and it has some battery-saving efficiencies, since there are fewer subpixels that the battery has to power.

Pixel densityGenerally speaking, though, the more pixels you have per inch (ppi), the better your picture. So smaller screens should look crisper than larger screens when both have the same pixel density.

PenTile matrix, RGBG

That said, Apple claims that the human eye can't really distinguish more than 326 pixels per inch. Screens with 1080p HD resolutions typically hover in the 5-inch range, delivering pixel densities in the high 300s to 400s.

HTC One Samsung Galaxy S4 iPhone 5

Screen size 4.7 in. 5 in. 4 in.

Resolution 1,920x1,080 1,920x1,080 1,136 x 640

Pixel density 468ppi 441ppi 326ppi

While pixel density is an important factor in the smoothness of the overall picture, it's just one facet of many. And when it comes to comparing smartphone pixel density with that of a tablet, you don't necessarily need the same high density. DisplayMate's Soneira explains here how fewer pixels can satisfy your eye when reading from a tablet you hold farther from your face than you would want from a smartphone, which has a smaller form factor and is often held closer.

Brightness and colorIt's as true with smartphones as it is with HDTVs: people's eyes are often drawn to the brightest and punchiest of the pack, blue blues and green greens that are rich and saturated, but just not true to life.

Oversaturated color gets tiring, and just looks cheap or fake when you're viewing something so familiar that your eye knows it's being fooled -- a video or photo of something you just know isn't that candied.

Some OLED devices do contain settings to dial down the juice, but you'll have to go hunting in the sub-menus to find more realistic tones.

Reflection, the secret enemyEver take your phone outside and squint to read the screen? Phones with high

reflectance can be a real setback, but some manufacturers are good at getting on top of it. Nokia applies its ClearBlack filterabove the touch layer (but below the glass) on its high-end phones. It works on both AMOLED and LCD screens.

The ClearBlack filter uses "circular polarization," which forces light to travel in a clockwise direction, then blocks off all the light that bounces back to the screen in a counterclockwise direction. The end result is reduced reflectance overall, and improved legibility both indoors and outdoors.

1440p

Brand ModelReleasemonth

Operating system

Display type

Resolution

(pixels)

Display size

Pixeldensity

(ppi)

BBKVivo Xplay

3SMarch 2014

Funtouch OS IPS LCD 2560x14406.0 in

(150 mm)490

LG G3 May 2014 Android 4.4 IPS LCD 2560x14405.5 in

(140 mm)538

LG isai FL July 2014 Android 4.4 IPS LCD 2560x14405.5 in

(140 mm)538

OPPO Find 7 May 2014 ColorOS IPS LCD 2560x14405.5 in

(140 mm)538

SamsungGalaxy S5

LTE-A G906S

July 2014TouchWiz Nature UX

3.5

Super AMOLED

2560x14405.1 in

(130 mm)577

LenovoVibe Z2

Pro K920September

2014Android 4.4 IPS LCD 2560x1440

6.0 in (150 mm)

490

Samsung Galaxy October Android 4.4 Super 2560x1440 5.7 in 515

Brand ModelReleasemonth

Operating system

Display type

Resolution

(pixels)

Display size

Pixeldensity

(ppi)

Note 4 2014 AMOLED (140 mm)

MotorolaDroid Turbo

October 2014

Android 4.4 AMOLED 2560x14405.2 in

(130 mm)565

Philipsi966

AuroraOctober

2014YunOS 3.0 IPS LCD 2560x1440

5.5 in (140 mm)

538

Motorola Nexus 6November

2014Android 5 AMOLED 2560x1440

5.96 in (151 mm)

493

FujitsuARROWS NX/F-02G

November 2014

Android 4.4 IPS LCD 2560x14405.2 in

(130 mm)570

LG isai VL 538

Smartphone Batteries

1. Battery in a bagA Li-ion pouch cell is a sealed bag containing carefully layered anode and cathode sheets, separators between them, and -- permeating all of these layers -- a liquid electrolyte. Although tablet batteries comprise several cells (three in the new iPad), smartphones are generally powered by single cells. Either way, at one end of the battery, a printed circuit board (PCB) is connected to the positive and negative terminals of each cell and provides active protection against short circuits, overcharge, and forced discharge. Li-ion pouch cells tend to be fragile and rely on the smartphone case for protection, and so officially are not user-replaceable.

2. Squeezing in run-timeThe energy density of a Li-ion pouch cell determines how much run-time you can pack into a given size (volumetric) or weight (gravimetric). Li-ion technology hit the market in 1991. Since then, processor transistor count has increased more than a thousand-fold, Li-ion energy density only threefold. Denser electronics are what make dazzling features possible, but they draw ever more power. Unfortunately, battery manufacturers are having a harder and harder time increasing energy density. This is why non-replaceable Li-ion pouch batteries are popular with smartphone and tablet designers.

3. The XYZ of cellsEnergy density is affected by the thickness and the ratio between width (X) and length (Y) of a Li-ion pouch cell. Volumetric energy density falls off as the pouch gets thinner because the packaging takes up a higher percentage of battery volume. The optimal X-Y ratio arises because when the PCB is installed on the short edge of a narrow battery, there's more room for the active

materials (anode and cathode) that actually store energy. All other things being equal, a narrow, thicker battery will deliver better volumetric energy density than a more square one.

4. The necessity of keeping coolLi-ion pouch cells don't like it hot -- a common condition for smartphones, as anyone who's ever had to wait out the "cool down" message knows. The standard Li-ion chemistry depends on an electrolyte that reacts with residual moisture to create hydrofluoric acid, the most corrosive of all chemical compounds. Like all chemical reactions, this process doubles in speed with every increase in temperature of 10 degrees Celsius. The result is reduced calendar and cycle life: not only does run-time degrade with simple age, but each charge and discharge further reduces it, until the battery just doesn't last long enough between charges. Worse, Li-ion cells generate heat themselves during charge and discharge: the more power your smartphone calls for or the faster you charge it, the hotter the battery gets.

5. Building a smartphoneThree-layer or "carve-out"? The Motorola Droid Razr line (both Razr and Razr Maxx) is an example of the three-layer approach to smartphone design: screen, circuitry, and battery. The iPhone 4 comprises two layers -- screen and electronics -- with a space carved out of the PCB for the battery. In either case, a bigger screen means room for a bigger battery. Regardless of the other advantages of each approach, the narrower, thicker battery possible with the carve-out approach will offer higher energy density. In a three-layer approach, it's also more difficult to shield the battery from components that generate heat and thus shorten battery life.

6. Chemistry: Wild card of the packImprovements in Li-ion chemistry may offer dramatic improvements in energy density, giving smartphone designers more choices in the feature vs. run-time battle. There's a lot of promising research into new active materials and some new solutions already on the market. One of these uses a new Li-imide electrolyte that doesn't generate hydrofluoric acid and thus delivers a dramatic improvement in thermal stability and battery life.

Smartphone OS Market Share, 2015 Q2

The worldwide smartphone market grew 13.0% year over year in 2015 Q2, with 341.5 million shipments, according to data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. This growth is primarily due to gains experienced in emerging markets such as APEJ and MEA. This quarter's shipments were slightly lower than forecast and IDC expects to see a noticeable slowdown in smartphone shipments in 2015 as China joins North America and Western Europe in a more mature growth pattern. Android dominated the market with an 82.8% share in 2015 Q2. Samsung reasserted its global leadership with a renewed focus on lower-cost smartphones.

Period Android iOS Windows Phone BlackBerry OS Others

2015Q2 82.8% 13.9% 2.6% 0.3% 0.4%

2014Q2 84.8% 11.6% 2.5% 0.5% 0.7%

2013Q2 79.8% 12.9% 3.4% 2.8% 1.2%

2012Q2 69.3% 16.6% 3.1% 4.9% 6.1%

Source: IDC, Aug 2015

Android dominated the smartphone market with a share of 82.8%. Samsung, the #1 contributor, had lower volumes QoQ and YoY. This comes in the midst of an underwhelming performance by its flagship releases, Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. However, the Android share has seen a rise compared to 2015Q1, with strong growth in unit shipments by other players such as Huawei, Xiaomi and ZTE.

iOS saw its market share for 2015Q2 decline by 22.3% QoQ with 47.5 million shipments. Despite the seasonal decline, Apple enjoyed success thanks to consumers' insatiable appetite for the larger screened iOS devices. The popularity of the iPhone 6 Plus continued in many key markets including China, where the overall smartphone market saw a revival in growth by 6.7%.

Windows Phone experienced a QoQ decline of 4.2% with a total of 8.8 million units shipped this quarter. Since its acquisition of Nokia in 2014, Microsoft has been revamping the product portfolio with Microsoft branded Lumia devices. But now that Microsoft has decided to take a loss on its Nokia purchase, the scenario for Windows Phone looks bleaker. Acer is a new entry into the top five in this segment. Most other vendors took a beating in shipments QoQ, with the exception of Samsung, which showed an 8.5% increase with its ATIV range of phones.

Blackberry OS, which saw a small increase in some regions, continued to decline in growth globally.

Smartphone Vendor Market Share, 2015 Q2

The worldwide smartphone market grew 13.0% year over year in 2015 Q2, with 341.5 million shipments, according to data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. This growth is primarily due to gains experienced in emerging markets such as APEJ and MEA. This quarter's shipments were slightly lower than forecast and IDC expects to see a noticeable slowdown in smartphone shipments in 2015 as China joins North America and Western Europe in a more mature growth pattern. Android dominated the market with an 82.8% share in 2015 Q2. Samsung reasserted its global leadership with a renewed focus on lower-cost smartphones.

Period Samsung Apple Huawei Xiaomi Lenovo* Others

2015Q2 21.4% 13.9% 8.7% 5.6% 4.7% 45.7%

2014Q2 24.8% 11.6% 6.7% 4.6% 8.0% 44.3%

2013Q2 31.9% 12.9% 4.3% 1.7% 5.7% 43.6%

2012Q2 32.2% 16.6% 4.1% 1.0% 5.9% 40.2%

Samsung retained its #1 leadership in the worldwide smartphone market with a 21.4% share in 2015Q2. This retention of position comes in the midst of a growth decline of 11.5% QoQ. This is largely attributed to the underwhelming performance of its newest flagship releases, the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge. Despite this, it was able to retain the number one position due to increased shipments of lower-end models, particularly to regions like Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Samsung's improved streamlined portfolio of devices, including the premium inspired A-series, proved successful in many mid-tier markets that were typically dominated by local brands. Though Samsung's redefined flagship (the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge) began shipments on a strong note, it failed to keep up the momentum.

Apple continued to find success with its larger screened iPhone 6 Plus. It shipped a total of 47.5 million units, which is a 22.3% decline from 2015Q1. Much of this came out of Greater China as rapid 4G adoption, Apple retail expansion, and an increased appetite for premium devices elevated the brand to new levels. Overall, iPhones grew 35.0% year over year and a remarkable 51.4% in emerging markets alone. With Apple on the brink of its next device update, IDC expects strong sales to continue for the rest of 2015.

Huawei raised itself to the number three spot this quarter from its fourth position in 2015Q1. There was a continued push on premium devices from its Ascend Mate 7, P-Series, and Honor portfolio. The shipments of mid-range and high-end phones accounted for 35.5% of its smartphone shipments in 2015 Q2. Huawei's Y-series sold briskly both inside and outside China, as a valuable low-cost option in many markets. What remains to be seen is how Huawei will leverage its online vs offline strategy, focus on revenue, and efforts on innovation to battle in this arena.

Xiaomi ousted LG to gain a spot in the top five category. Key to its success was the launch of the Redmi 2A model in China, as well as the continued performance of the Redmi 2 and MI-4 models. This growth is remarkable considering that it has made its presence felt only in Asia Pacific, and primarily in China. With Xiaomi's recent entry into Brazil and announcement to launch in Africa in September, its future growth may become dependent on markets outside Asia Pacific. It will also

showcase if Xiaomi's direct selling strategy will prove successful in these newer markets.

Lenovo fell by two places this quarter, which resulted in a 4.7% share of the market. The Motorola brand shipped 5.9 million units, 36.2% of the Lenovo group. The second quarter after Motorola announced its return to China, it shipped 26K units in comparison to the 92K units in 2015Q1. Even though Lenovo had strategically positioned both its brands and coinciding models in order to maximize brand awareness and global reach in 2015Q1, stiff competition from Huawei and Xiaomi has brought ample cause to re-look at its strategy.

Table 1Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 2Q15 (Thousands of Units)

Company2Q15Units

2Q15 Market Share (%)

2Q14Units

2Q14 Market Share (%)

Samsung 72,072.5 21.9 76,129.2 26.2Apple 48,085.5 14.6 35,345.3 12.2Huawei 25,825.8 7.8 17,657.7 6.1Lenovo* 16,405.9 5.0 19,081.2 6.6Xiaomi 16,064.9 4.9 12,540.8 4.3Others 151,221.7 45.9 129,630.2 44.6Total 329,676.4 100.0 290,384.4 100.0

Table 2Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 2Q15 (Thousands of Units)

Operating System2Q15Units

2Q15 Market Share (%)

2Q14Units

2Q14 Market Share (%)

Android 271,010 82.2 243,484 83.8iOS 48,086 14.6 35,345 12.2Windows 8,198 2.5 8,095 2.8BlackBerry 1,153 0.3 2,044 0.7Others 1,229.0 0.4 1,416.8 0.5Total 329,676.4 100.0 290,384.4 100.0