Lets get creative and design what would be our perfect Smartphone

[Calidude]

We talk about the existing handsets out there, but when you really look closely at all the handsets, there's weaknesses in all of them. How about we dream up our perfect device?

My phone would look like this:

• Body would be pretty much like the Lumia series but with further enhancements. Matte Polycarbonate with Gorilla Glass. It should NOT be thin like the iPhone 5. It should have some heft, thickness, strength and durability without being TOO heavy yet still pack in a lot of internals.
• Screen would measure at 4.7 inches, 16x9 aspect ratio. I'd go with the IGZO display tech that the iPhone 5 is using.
• CPU/GPU should be something like the latest Exynos on the Galaxy S3.
• Front-facing camera would be 2 megapixels and be able to take 720p video or whatever lower quality you select.
• 8 megapixel Camera with dual-flash or any other high intensity LED config, along with a very large lens, completely within the body of the phone. No protruding cameras. They make me sick.
• Metal buttons along the side should be a power button on the side with a camera shutter button opposite a volume rocker and physical mute switch. Once again, they must be metal.
• LARGE speakers at the bottom surrounding the data/charge port. No viewable grilles but metal holes with grilles behind them like the iPhone 5. This will be next to the 3.5 mm headphone jack.
• No physical or capacitive buttons on the face of the phone. It should be exactly as Android 4.0 has it. Back, home and multitasking on-screen buttons.
• The OS would be a lightweight mix of iOS and Android. It would essentially be OSX on a phone, where you can do everything OSX does and still have the App Store as well along with the desktop features of Android such as a filesystem, etc. The design philosophy would be a matured Android Holo with only the useful elements of iOS thrown in. Basically I want the speed of iOS, the functionality of Android, and the low resource usage of WP.
• Expandable storage would be available as well through an SD slot that is paired along with the SIM slot, allowing up to 64 GB of extra storage. I'd put that on the top of the phone by itself.
• Starts with 32 GB of memory, has all the sensors needed, but most of all, it needs WiFi that is insanely powerful so that you don't use data if you live in a big house. Wifi should be as potent as the cellular radio.
• Instead of NFC, there needs to be a universal standard for close-proximity info transfer, such as Bluetooth 5.0. For privacy purposes, that radio will be completely controlled by the user and be activated only on a per-session basis.
• Charging would be optionally wireless and the data/charging port would be a Micro-USB 3.0 connector. The battery will be something along the lines of 3,000 MaH and ensure about 8 hours of on screen time.

 

[zbarvian]

Fun.

- 4.55 inch screen, IGZO with in-cell touch IPS Gorilla Glass 2 display
- Design of Lumia 920 but with matte white, not glossy white
- 8mm thin
- Dual core 1.5 GHz A15 with a strong GPU
- 8 MP camera, 2MP front
- LTE
- 2100 mah battery, long enough to last a full day with moderate/heavy use
- OS: polish and ecosystem of iOS, with customization and features of Android, with uniqueness and elegance of Windows Phone 8.
- On-screen buttons
- wireless charging and a standard wired connection
- Very little bezel

I'd buy 20. What's great is I think we'll see phones like this in a year from now.

 

[Wrathwitch]

Mine would pretty much be the transparent glass (or whatever compound would be used. The whole phone other than perhaps top 2/10th and bottom 2/10ths (which would house the chips and guts needed for the phone.

There was a video about it (mock up) and I thought it looked amazing. I would love to have something like that, with specs comparable to the S3 but incorporating the new Nokia camera.

 

[Oohara]

dream phone (phablet)

- 5.0 screen with same resolution & crisp as Apple's retina screens, but the color /contrast punch of the HTC One X screen.

- front of the device designed by whatever team is responsible for how the Galaxy Nexus looks, because IMO I can't think of a more beautiful shape for any phone. Designed along the same lines as the GNex - which includes NO ****** BRANDING on the FRONT.

- back of the device/general build quality more along the lines of the One X; that dark grey matte polycarbonate...yum. (the matte aluminum of the One S would be even better but probably way too heavy)

- Power button on top, volume buttons & PHYSICAL mute switch where they are on the iPhones.

- physical rotation lock like on the iPad.

- camera at least as good as on the S3, not gonna get into specs as I know balls all about cameras really.

- audiophile quality DAC & general specs for delivery of a really top level sound through headphones. (This could be optional, I'd pay a lot of money to have this on my phone.)

- headphone extension cord dongle with a remote for play/stop/skip track/volume etc.

- stylus, but really classy looking. Pressure sensitivity levels etc. like on the Note 2.

- some sort of magnet system + front cover that locks onto the phone (phablet) like on the Ipad. Really thin but durable & nice looking covers.

- pure Android (this could be a Nexus device), at least JB ofc, but with a few necessary tweaks: split screen multitasking (want to be able to view one document while writing another), and a graphical equalizer with storeable setups (not just a ton of presets, I want to be able to control the frequencies in detail, and in realtime)

- fast access e-reader mode for the screen (optimize brightness/contrast for easy-on-the-eyes black text on white reading experience).

Phew. That is all I think.... God, are you listening?!

 

[Stuntman06]

Here's my ideal phone:

• Landscape Slider Keyboard that is designed like the Nokia E7.
• 4" qHD screen (that's 1/4 of a 1080p screen). I want to be able to use it one handed easily.
• Double the battery life of my current SGS3
• Runs Android with HTC Sense (I just love Sense and miss it)
• 32GB of storage
• Loud speaker should be on the corner and not the back. I cannot hear the ring in a noisy room on my current phone because the loud speaker is on the back and my holster covers it.
• Heavy vibration when ringing.
• Light sensor with auto brightness that can be calibrated.
• Camera shutter button.

 

[mcman77]

Software is more important than hardware IMO and software is also catching up.

Batteries are what have been left faaar behind, need much more technology as they aren't on par with screen technology let's say.

Personally I'd like a phone that would replace my desktop. So I go to work, plug it in the dock and screen and it does 100% what desktop OS's do.

And of course I can use it as a phone and mobile device.

Oh, and would be a bonus if it could replace a point and shoot camera but i'm that is probably impossible.

 

[Calidude]

Software is more important than hardware IMO and software is also catching up.

I don't think Apple believes that, as their software isn't up to par with their hardware.

 

[onthecouchagain]

Power/sleep button MUST be on the side, like how Samsung does it, for such a large device.

Having it on top is horridly cumbersome to reach for. Try the HTC One X for a few days, and you'll see. It's so much more natural on the sides.

 

[cube]

The main thing is that all phones should have real Java.

 

[Calidude]

Power/sleep button MUST be on the side, like how Samsung does it, for such a large device.

Having it on top is horridly cumbersome to reach for. Try the HTC One X for a few days, and you'll see. It's so much more natural on the sides.

You're right, I dunno why I said on top.

 

[dkersten]

Awesome thread OP! The 3 things I would like are:

1) A larger screen (4.3 to 4.6) in the same aspect ratio as the iPhone 4,4S

2) A notification light, integrated into the square of the home button changing different colors for different alerts

3) An option in the iOS settings that would allow users to make their phone more customizable (really anything to get away from the grid of icons). Users could add widgets, banners for information (stock updates, sports scores, weather) that would always be at the top around where the battery indicator and carrier signal is now (just bigger), and other things to let people customize their software. And then at the slide of a button in settings, you could go back to the regular iOS

I know that last one is wishful thinking, but if this is my ideal phone I can dream right?

 

[digital.l0gic]

*
4.7-5 inches 16:9 screen
*
Using Samsung's next generation Super AMOLED HD PLUS
1080p screen (720 is fine but I believe they are coming out with 1080p, and for a 5 inch phone 1080p aint overkill) ~ 400 ppi
*
Exynos 5 Quad (ARM 15 architecture with next gen graphics (Mali 6 series) processor

*
Removable battery

*
SD Card support (SDXC with support to 128gb in the future)

*
Internal storage starting at 32 gb

*
LTE, WIFI b,g,n,a
*
NFC, Bluetooth 4/5, Gyroscope, magnetometer,Barometer etc etc

*
12Mp low f Camera with bright LED flash, and other assorted features..hopefully Carl Zeiss lenses, 2Mp front cam

*
Stock Android 5.0(or 4.1 if 5.0 is not released by this time)

*
Front is one solid screen, no physics buttons..all software

*
Volume rocker on the side, power button on side,

*
Hidden led notifications

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Gorilla glass 2

*
Ceremic /Carbon fiber body


Notes 1:

Exynos 5 quad for now, but in the near future hopefully the 20nm and the 14nm chips Samsung is investing Billions of R&D into.

As things stand, the super-small and super-efficient 22 nanometer transistors in Intels' Ivy Bridge are about as cutting edge as mainstream chip production gets, which is why this promise from Samsung is rather impressive. As reported by Reuters, the Korean manufacturer is preparing to invest $1.9 billion in a new logic chip line that will make chips for smartphones and processors. These chips will use 20nm and 14nm fabrication processes, making them potentially faster and more efficient than Ivy Bridge -- and leaving the silicon currently found in Sammy's 32nm Exynos Quad and Qualcomm's 28nm Snapdragon S4 far behind.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/07/samsung-20nm-14nm-chip-production/

A 20nm mobile Chip from Samsung would crush every other chip maker in terms of efficiency in both speed/battery life.

Notes 2:

Before someone pounce on me for saying 1080p is too much and the human eye cannot detect the difference.. please keep in mind that the "Retina" claim is a purely marketing one and there is no proper scientific research backing up the claim that the human eye cannot detect anything more than 300ppi.
Already there are android phones with around 340 ppi and people do say that there is a noticeable visual quality to those screens..thus 400 is not too much.

 

[Sedrick]

Nokia 920 with iOS 10. I say 10 because I can imagine by then it'll do most everything people want it to do, today.