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5 of The Best Smartphone Capabilities

Smartphones have come a long way since Nokia released the Communicator way back in 1996, and where they were once a niche market for business professionals and geeks, they are now almost universal with everyone and their dog sporting a BlackBerry, the latest iPhone deal or Android phone in their pocket.

The main reason for this explosion in popularity is the huge functionality these phones allow, and with storage capacity growing all the time there is almost nothing we cannot store on our smartphones. So, what makes a great smartphone? Here are our top five features.

1. Games

One of the big things modern phones can do is play games. Sure, Nokia popularised this with the legendary Snake on its 3210 model, but it’s a whole other ball game now. Flash-enabled phones allow users to play online games and a platform’s app store not having thousands more available for download can turn a customer off – just ask Microsoft whose latest Windows Phone 7 platform, didn’t feature Angry Birds for many months.

The ability to play quality-rich games effectively is down to processor speed. The Samsung Galaxy S2’s 1.2GHz dual-core processor makes it more powerful than many low-end computers and this is by no means the exception; other high-end smartphones are not lacking in power either. This huge processing power means consumers can play hugely popular games like Deal or no Deal whenever they feel the need, or the more classic but still popular Who Wants to be a Millionaire? The more adventurous user can even install an emulator of their favourite console and play classic games from their childhood – Sonic the Hedgehog anyone?

2. HDMI output

Large processors and oodles of RAM also permit power-intense usage, like streaming an entire film from Netflix to be watched on the train, bus or on your home television set thanks to such technology as HDMI. This excellent function allows you to download a film to your device, or copy it from your PC, plug it into the television and sit back with some popcorn.

3. Tethering

Many smartphones also offer the option of tethering; using your unlimited data plan to browse the web on your computer. The speed might not be as blistering as your fibre-optic broadband, but it’s still a godsend when you’re stuck in a hotel room with no modem available.

4. Front-facing cameras

Smartphones are still phones despite all their advanced capabilities and most models still centre on communication. Twitter and Facebook integration are all well and good, but front-facing cameras are the real gem here. These are lower quality than the main camera on the rear, but they allow for video calls with applications like Skype, so you can talk face-to-face with anyone anywhere in the world. Most phones allow video calling via 3G, although the iPhone limits the use to Wi-Fi and only to other Apple products.

5. Expandable memory

There would be little point in having a phone capable of capturing and playing HD videos and photos, streaming films, playing games and music and saving documents if it only had a couple of gigabytes of storage. As people’s usage is different, most phones have a microSD slot so the user can insert a memory card to increase the storage space. This means you can upload anything you want onto the device and not worry about running out of space.

This quick rundown of five excellent capabilities of modern smartphones is by no means comprehensive, and different users will have different favourite features. These features have proven themselves to be extremely popular and invaluable to users, and they are what will push the limits of the next generation of smartphones.