Where Can Smartphones Go From Here?

With the recent announcement of several new high-end smartphones—including the OnePlus 2, Moto X Style, and Galaxy Note 5—the sheer power of modern smartphones are becoming more and more apparent. The question remains: Will we ever be satisfied?

Let's look back a mere 5 years, and see just how far we've come since then:

The year is 2010, and the first 4G phone in the United States, the HTC Evo 4G, has been released. It wows the crowd with its 480x800 resolution 4.3-inch screen, its 1GHz Snapdragon S1 processor, 512MB of RAM, and 8-megapixel rear camera. Impressive, right? Right.

It was one of the most powerful phones at the time, and the fact that all of this fit in the palm of your hand still baffled most consumers at that time. The iPhone 4, also released in 2010, was perhaps even more influential, with its premium metal-and-glass build, and smooth, responsive, iOS.

Fast-forward 5 years, and we see the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 announced. It has a 5.7-inch QHD display, an octa-core 64-bit Exynos processor (2.1GHz quad + 1.5GHz quad), 4GB of RAM, a 16-megapixel camera with f/1.9 aperture and 4k video recording with optical image stabilization, and just about everything else you could ever want. It can be quite overwhelming to look at these specifications and know what to glean from them. Let's break them down in day-to-day comparisons.

The Screen:

• The typical television that you will find in most peoples' homes most likely has a resolution of 1920x1080, compared to the 2560x1440 screen that you find on this phone. Additionally, the recent trend of increasing screen size, has been reducing the need for a tablet to complement your smartphone.

The Processor and Memory:

• While it is difficult to directly compare processors on mobile devices to those found in laptops and desktops, the processor found on this phone is more powerful than many computers from about 5 years ago. Coupled with 4GB of RAM, this is the same amount of RAM that still comes standard on the latest 2015 MacBook Air.

The Camera:

• Smartphones have not only come to replace the need for compact cameras, but even now have comparable results to some entry-level DSLR cameras. With manual controls, RAW capability, wide apertures, and high megapixel counts, the need to buy a pocket camera in addition to your smartphone has essentially been nixed. Additionally, the video recording quality on modern smartphones has surpassed many video cameras, particularly with the ability to shoot high-quality 4k footage.

All of these kinds of improvements have changed smartphones from being convenient devices with some neat features, to workhorses that can handle just about anything you throw at them. They have even been able to replace many other devices (such as cameras), and have thus simplified what we need to carry with us.

Now that we have reached the point where we can have a lag-free, high-quality experience on any flagship smartphone, the question still lingers, where can we go from here? The most shocking thing about the announcements of the OnePlus 2, as well as the new Moto lineup, was their price tags. Now that a smooth experience is the standard for all new smartphones, the manufacturers have to compete on different playing fields. Perhaps the most important field is price, where you can get a top-of-the-line phone for under $400USD now. Similarly, additional features such as NFC, wireless charging, and fingerprint readers, are now packed in to offer additional value. This has led to somewhat of a creative renaissance in terms of smartphone design, and the healthy competition, encouraged by companies such as OnePlus, has been driving the smartphone industry into new heights.

That's not to say that the industry can keep improving forever. Wearable technology, and smartphone alternatives may have to emerge when the industry plateaus, and companies will certainly have to adapt to an ever-changing market and the tastes of consumers, who can never be satisfied with "the latest thing."