For the longest time, we as a culture have been looking for the very latest mobile device, dating all the way back to the now antique Blackberry. With smartphones, the top-of-the-line models always come with incredible promises of power, advanced features and overall more usability. With the big brands all providing budget models, however, how much do we actually need the very best?
Browsing
It’s a little-known secret in the tech industry that, if you have a basic smartphone and a moderately good Internet connection, 99% of the World Wide Web is completely open to you. Whichever browser you happen to be using, there is very little that is on the Internet that is too demanding on your hardware, in part because modern web tech is designed to be mobile-friendly.
If you take one of the more intensive areas, such as the apps and games available for online casino and bingo sites, you get a great example of this. Everything from live roulette to free to play bingo games are rooted now in HTML5 technology, and all the animations, buttons, and designs are streamlined so that any smartphone from the last 10 years can easily handle them. Bear in mind this is often the top end of hardware demands, and most of the web is much more basic.
Apps
By comparison to browsing, apps can be where budget devices can fall down a little. The lower level of hardware will certainly struggle with some particularly powerful apps, such as the famous Adobe Suite or any of the more advanced gaming options. Depending on what you mainly use your smartphone for, however, it may be much less of a restriction than you think.
Like browser-based software, most apps are designed for maximum user reach and most will aim for the lowest possible hardware requirements. Built-in apps from Google or Apple are a given, but most day-to-day apps for things like the news, day planning, documents, and others will run on just about anything with a touchscreen.
Functions
When the new generations of devices are released, the most commonly mentioned selling points are the physical functions such as how many megapixels they have or the amount of storage and battery life they contain. In reality, unless you specifically need a super-powered camera for social media or photography, most people are unlikely to get much real difference from a budget camera.
Battery life can be a point, but as for storage, there are multiple ways around it. For example, services like Google Drive can offer just as much free storage as most high-end smartphones and there are plenty of options to choose from. Even then, the average user without any powerful apps or thousands of photos is unlikely to fill a standard memory card.
The main point here is that before buying the very latest smartphone model, think carefully about what you’re using it for. If you’re only checking the weather, messaging some friends or keeping your fitness regime up to date, consider the budget end of the line!
