What does 2015 have in store for smartphones?

With each passing year, we get closer to technology that was dreamt of long ago. We get closer to the future that is depicted in sci-fi flicks, and we say our goodbyes to tech that we would no longer need. The pace at which new technology reshapes our ways of living, is simply too fast to catch up with, in one go.

That may be a bit of a concern for anyone who has just invested heavily in a top-tier smartphone – it might as well be redundant next year. But is smartphone technology going to change so drastically in just one year that the ₹50,000 device you just bought would feel useless? We at Technophile take stock of what the next year looks like.

Actually, the future of the processor is responsible for almost all the new cool stuff that you keep getting every time a manufacturer rolls out a flagship update. And leading the processing game is Qualcomm, with its Snapdragon system-on-chip (SoC). In case you didn’t know, almost every top-end smartphone (apart from the iPhones) is powered by the Snapdragon series of processors.

In a smartphone, the processor is responsible for handling everything from basic computing to multitasking to even handling your data streaming. It’s the heart and soul of the device.

Qualcomm’s new processor, the upcoming Snapdragon 810 will be packing quite a few tricks up its cores. The most noticeable one would be its ability to handle 4K video. Sure, there are a few phones out there that support 4K video, such as the LG G3, but that’s quite rare. And that’s mostly to with the display panel – the Snapdragon 810 will be more adept at 4K streaming or process 4K videos. Considering that phones like Xperia Z3 are already recording 4K videos, you’d need some extra juice to edit and render these videos.

For long, we had thought that we would never see anything more than the bar form of smartphone, and then LG came in with the G Flex. It wasn’t exactly a hit, but then we got another surprise in form of the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge. The idea of having multiple, independent screens embedded in the phones design, for different purposes, is a rather exciting one.

While we wait eagerly for Samsung to add finishing touches to this device, we’re also waiting for the Yotafone 2 to land on our shores. Who wouldn’t want a device with one conventional and one e-ink display?

We’re also expecting new camera technologies – HTC blew our minds off with the dual-camera design on the One M8. We’re hoping to find some optical zoom and ultra-wide wizardry from the smartphones now.

The combination of upcoming ultra-low-powered Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radios and intense computing power from the Snapdragon 810 chip can make the smartphone or tablet serve a whole new purpose – work as a standalone PC. Ideally, a high-end smartphone usually carries more computing power than a mid-range home PC. So if you have a good smartphone, maybe all you need then is a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse – and of course, a wireless technology to bring all these together to form a single personal computing unit.

And if a smartphone can double up as your PC, what’s to stop it from acting as a full-fledged gaming console?

However, the biggest hit of 2015 may be Google’s Project ARA, the modular phone project. Considering the fact that you can simply add or subtract just the specs you need on a basic smartphone frame, as and when you want, this will make living with a smartphone much easier. If you want a 5GHz modem, you can add one. You don’t want a fingerprint sensor, you can just take it out. Dropped the phone and broke the display panel? Just order a new one from Google and swap it on your own.

We’ve got our hopes set pretty high for the year to come.

COMMENT NOW