Why smartphones? Well, smartphones have become integral to our lives. Almost everyone has a smartphone. In fact these little devices are a daily part of our lives.

What smartphones can do

We rely on them for just about everything. From checking your email (something only a PC or Personal Computer could do once upon a time), to studying/reading, keeping fit, monitoring menstrual periods, watching live TV, keeping up with the Joneses on social media, playing console quality games etc. As time goes by, with each new release, newer features are added to smartphones that make them more and more important in our lives.

Read: Introduction to Smartphone SoCs

Smartphone specs

Chances are that as you are reading this, you own a smartphone or you are hoping to buy one soon. There are many types of offerings in the market. So many different companies, brand names etc. all trying to confuse you even more. You will hear so many talk about RAM, ROM, Gigahertz, Quad-core or Octa-core, megapixel, Triple camera, Quad camera, HD, FHD, 3,000mAh, USB type C and so much more. Most of us aren’t interested in these plenty stories, we want to know which is affordable and is worth the price. I understand that it hurts badly when after buying your phone for a certain price, you find out that a friend or colleague got a better phone for almost the price or even cheaper.

I was once confused about these specs too and I know that many people are. The idea of these early posts is to start from the beginning and give you a simple foundation on which to build from so that when you hold up a phone carton to read the specs, you will be conversant with the terms written on it. You would know if that phone is worth the price or if it will meet your needs.

It is sad that most smartphone marketers are only concerned with sales rather than educating their customers. Some companies also deliberately misrepresent their specs on their phones to try and fool the ignorant public.

I understand that some readers already know a lot about smartphones and would like more advanced stuff. I hereby plead your patience as we move along. There is always something for everybody and as usual I’ll do my best to simplify stuff so as to make these things come to life.

Conclusion

For those who are new, understand that Rome wasn’t built in a day. So take your time to learn these things. It is a gradual process.
For the upcoming series of posts, we’ll discuss the basics. The parts of a phone, SoCs, CPU cores, GPUs, Cameras, Megapixels, Displays, Batteries, battery types and how batteries work, USB ports, as well as other ports like the headphone jacks and infrared blasters.

Hopefully, we should have 2 posts a week. I’ll always be in the comments section to reply to comments as soon as possible.

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