Depending on your age, you might have noticed the evolution of phones as time went by. If you’re a young adult in this day and age, then you must have witnessed how phones drastically changed throughout the mid 2000s. With the staggering success of the first iPhone, the way we use our phones has undergone a paradigm shift. Screens became bigger, while capacitive buttons started getting smaller. 

Nowadays, phones are essentially a slab of glass and plastic (or glass and glass, glass and metal; it depends), and they do so many things that it’d take days to list them out. They have become ‘smart,’ being able to do almost all of the things a desktop computer could do. Hence, the evolution of phones to smartphones has changed society as a whole.

With that, the question could easily be asked: what exactly is a smartphone? What makes a phone a smartphone? And if they do perform the same things a computer does, what is the difference? Do smartphones have different storage options, such as NVMe vs. M.2? Or are they all running on the same platform? Let’s tackle these questions together and give you a crash course on smartphones.

What is a smartphone?

In order to fully grasp what a smartphone is, we should try to compare it to traditional phones. This might seem obvious for some and a total discovery for others. Depending on your age, you might be dumbfounded at just how dumb (no pun intended) phones used to be!

• “Dumb” phones – Because of smartphones, feature phones are usually dubbed dumbphones. A feature phone is a traditional phone you might see your old uncle using or a phone that you used to own. It essentially does basic things, such as calling, texting, and sometimes playing music and capturing really grainy photos. A feature phone has a very small screen as compared to a smartphone, and the majority of its body is covered with capacitive buttons that are clicky and tactile to the touch.

• Smartphones – As compared to dumbphones, smartphones are very technologically advanced. Not only can they do everything a feature phone could do, but they can also perform tasks that are impossible on the former. Before that, however, let’s detail what a smartphone looks like. A smartphone is usually a large device, hovering around 6.5 inches in a screen diagonal. It usually only has capacitive buttons for volume and power, while the rest is all screen. You can interact with everything on the screen by touch, dragging, etc. Smartphones also have loads of features that are nowhere to be found in feature phones.

Advantages of a smartphone

For starters, they could take better photos. They can also connect to the internet via mobile data or Wifi, and their connection speeds dwarf that of a feature phone. Moreover, smartphones have complex technological apparatus in them that are very useful in modern times. A gyroscope that senses the orientation of a phone in different axes, a thermometer to measure internals and intelligently adjust performance to reduce heat, smart charging ports that stop charging whenever the battery is full, and even a GPS, which could give off a precise ping on your location and for navigation purposes. 

Not only that, a smartphone works way faster than a feature phone in almost every single aspect. You could open up a camera with a tap, send messages with a few clicks, and have everything at the edge of your fingertips. Because basically everyone owns a smartphone these days, communicating with others also largely depends on such a phone. It is, therefore, almost essential to own a smartphone in the 21st century.