article About Features of a BAD smartphone - (all-vga-corner)

List of smartphones to avoid

Chanced upon a few articles that warned that these phones should be avoided. The models and the respective reasons are:

1. Huawei P9: Leica certified lens but not made by Leica and premium priced
2. Oppo R9: Simple look and feel
3. iPhone SE: "Yellow screen" symptoms
4. LG G5: Premium priced
5. HTC A9: Mid end chipset selling at premium price
6. Meizu Pro 6: No new features when compared to Pro 5
7. Samsung S7: Price keeps dropping every week
8. Sony Z5: Premium priced

Let's explore further hoping to determine the real reasons behind those bad comments.

Features and Capabilities

Let's review the various specifications of the phones.

Brand Model	Launch Date	Chipset	Weight (g)	RAM (GB)	Storage (GB)	Battery (mAh)	RMB	Retail Price (US$)
Huawei P9	Apr-2016	Kirin 955	144	3	32	3000	3188	480
Oppo R9	Mar-2016	MT6755	145	4	64	2850	2799	422
iPhone SE	Mar-2016	APL0898	113	2	16	1642	3088	465
LG G5	Feb-2016	MSM8996	159	4	32	2800	4186	630
HTC One A9	Sep-2015	MSM8974AB	160	2	16	2600	1888	285
Meizu Pro 6	Apr-2016	MT6797T	160	4	32	2560	2500	377
Samsung S7	Feb-2016	Exynos 8 Octa 8990	152	4	32	3000	4950	745
Sony Xperia Z5	Sep-2015	MSM8994	154	3	32	2900	4500	678

Even if we provide colours to the table, it is hard to compare. Let's rank them instead.

Brand Model\Rank	Weight (g)	RAM (GB)	Storage (GB)	Battery (mAh)	RMB	Retail Price (US$)	Points	Rank
Huawei P9	7	3	3	7	4	4	28	2
Oppo R9	6	5	8	5	6	6	36	1
iPhone SE	8	1	1	1	5	5	21	6
LG G5	3	5	3	4	3	3	21	6
HTC One A9	1	1	1	3	8	8	22	4
Meizu Pro 6	1	5	3	2	7	7	25	3
Samsung S7	5	5	3	7	1	1	22	4
Sony Xperia Z5	4	3	3	6	2	2	20	8

Purely based on these specifications, Oppo R9 comes out top as the best phone while Sony Xperia Z5 is intending to rip customers off.

You may argue that some features are more important than the rest such as the battery capacity. If you give 5 times the points to features which you value the most.  In this instance, let's give x5, x3 and x2 to Price, Battery and Storage respectively.

Brand Model\Rank	Weight (g)	RAM (GB)	Storage (GB)	Battery (mAh)	RMB	Retail Price (US$)	Points	Rank
Huawei P9	7	3	6	21	4	20	61	2
Oppo R9	6	5	16	15	4	30	76	1
iPhone SE	8	1	2	3	4	25	43	8
LG G5	3	5	6	12	4	15	45	6
HTC One A9	1	1	2	9	4	40	57	3
Meizu Pro 6	1	5	6	6	4	35	57	3
Samsung S7	5	5	6	21	4	5	46	5
Sony Xperia Z5	4	3	6	18	4	10	45	6

With different values in the eyes of different consumers, your choice of a phone becomes clear.  Oppo R9 is still the best and iPhone SE is the worst phone to get.

Conclusions

Although Oppo R9 is listed as the phone to avoid, it still can be an option when you are getting a new phone. After all, it becomes a benchmark to avoid.

If you have other ways to compare different phones, share and give your comments too.

article About Why smartphones are stupid? - (all-vga-corner)

Why smartphones are stupid?

The Achilles' heel of smartphone

We have moved quite far since Apple introduced the first iPhone on 29 June 2007.  Our world has become different and we have access to knowledge and information faster.  We feel smarter because we have devices that support our search when we are in doubts.

Our total reliance on smartphone to remember the phone numbers, email address, taking notes, calendar schedules and information searches made our brain lazy.  When our smartphone is dead, we are also brain dead and panicked.

What happen to the battery?

Let's review the generations of iPhone.  We use a simple equation: Battery Index = Standby Time / Capacity of the battery.  The higher the index, the better is the battery as it can last longer with the same amount of capacity.

iPhone	Capacity (mAh)	Standby (hrs)	Battery Index
1G	1400	250	0.18
3G	1150	300	0.26
3GS	1219	300	0.25
4	1420	300	0.21
4S	1432	200	0.14
5	1440	225	0.16
5C	1510	250	0.17
5S	1560	250	0.16
6	1810	250	0.14
6S	1715	240	0.14
6 Plus	2915	384	0.13
6S Plus	2750	384	0.14
SE	1642	240	0.15

From the chart above, we noticed that iPhone 3G has the best efficiency among all the iPhones while iPhone 6 Plus has the worst Battery Index.

Why don't Apple make bigger battery to ensure longer standby time?  Well, newer iPhone are more power efficient with smaller CPU and better components.  Bigger battery means more weight and thicker phones which are undesirable.  To maintain its aesthetic, battery capacity is compromised to keep its weight and thickness down to its minimum.

For Android, manufacturers introduced Fast charge, Pump Express and other speed charging technology to compensate for the small battery capacity.  They assume that you always have a stable power point for charging and force you to carry a charging cable and its charger.

The hidden culprits

Applications grow at an exponential rate with many different angles.  For simple route navigation, we may install different applications and we keep all of them because each has their unique advantages.  We install more applications into smartphone and it runs more applications than yesterday.

If we chose not to install any applications, it defeats the purpose of getting a smartphone (You might as well buy a Nokia 105).  Therefore, we install applications to make us smarter and by installing more applications, we are taxing the battery and further reducing its standby time.

Power banks and chargers become our daily must have accessories and we spent more money on top of the expensive smartphone.  The vicious cycle repeats for a new iPhone with a different charging cable.  Instead of charging the smartphone, you are now forced to charge the battery banks.  We are cornered and act so foolishly with a small capacity battery.

Conclusions

Getting a small capacity smartphone is silly.  Instead of charging a smartphone, you have to charge the power bank as well.  You are forced to bring chargers, cables and power bank wherever you go.  If you fail to comply, you become stupid because the smart element (smartphone) of you is power dead.

Be wise: Get a smartphone with a BIG battery capacity.  The same applies to Android phone.