5 smartphone features that are overrated

It seems that every week there’s a new smartphone announced or launched and most of the time, it’s almost the same as that of ones that are announced earlier. Just a little bit different spec-wise.

When looking for a new smartphone, what’s that certain uncommon feature that matters to you? Before you say that a smartphone sucks because it lacks a certain feature, do you ask yourself if it’s something that you really want or need?

Here are 5 features of smartphones that I think people (not all) should not be concerned about when a phone doesn’t have it.

NFC

Near Field Communication or NFC is the evolution of Bluetooth pairing. Instead of setting up BT on devices for pairing, NFC just require you to bump your devices together to communicate. Sounds cool right? On paper yes, and if you have a lot of NFC devices.

However, just like Bluetooth, there’s the initial “setup” required to authenticate a device for future NFC pairing say for example an NFC speaker. So in that regard, it’s still the same as Bluetooth. Once paired, it will automatically pair the next time around if it sees it. Not that hot anymore huh?

I guess at this moment, the practical application would be those NFC tags where you can set rules for your phone to follow once bumped. I’m sure there are far more better applications for NFC in the future but right now (and maybe next year), it’s just a nice-to-have phone feature.

microSD slot

When a phone doesn’t come with a microSD slot, I always see a lot of people cringe. It’s funny because I doubt if most of these people really need more than 16GB (they stopped producing non-microSD slot phones with only 8GB storage me thinks) worth of storage space.

Of course, there are media hogs out there who don’t have time to delete games they don’t play, or videos they won’t watch anymore. To those types of people, maybe an extra 32GB might eventually not be enough as well.

LTE

LTE or Long Term Evolution gives users access to mobile high-speed internet. Now who wouldn’t want that? Well, unless you’re going to be using your phone as a tether to download torrents, I don’t see why a high-speed Internet is of use for the average smartphone user.

Yeah it looks cool to share your LTE speed test results on Facebook but it does get old, trust me. 3G should be fine (even for Skyping) and its less power hungry. Don’t pass a good phone just because it doesn’t have LTE.

Waterproof

So you want a phone that you can take with you while you shower? Ok. Whatever floats your boat. But do you know how phones get waterproofed? They use rubber flaps to cover exposed ports such as the microUSB. And you know what happens if you keep on opening and closing these flaps whenever you want to charge your phone? They eventually get loose (quickly I should say) so there goes your waterproofing.

If you really want to waterproof your phone, get a well-built waterproof case for it instead.

Full HD screen

Ooh check it, my phone has Full HD. Awesome right? Well, not really. A 1080p movie is about 6GB so how many movies can you put there to enjoy your Full HD screen? Or how often do you download Full HD videos?

Unless you always connect your mobile device to your big screen, you really don’t need a Full HD resolution. If you’re watching a lot of Full HD videos, I always suggest doing it on a 40” and above screen. On a 5-inch phone, you really won’t notice much difference if the screen is Full HD or just HD so don’t get a phone just because it has a Full HD resolution.

Conclusion

There are many smartphones right now, some with dazzling built-in features, but if you’re looking for one, the deciding factors should still be the basics: price, platform, design, brand and then your intangibles in any order of preference according to your primary usage.