5 Must-Include Features in Mobile Phones

The Smartphone Industry is up, higher than ever and the war just seems to have begun. With smartphones running Android from every manufacturer trying to compete against each other, the iPhone scenario is just as good as ever in its kernel.

Integrating all your online accounts on the cloud or your IM and SMS might be a step forward, but that’s not it all. Here are some of the small yet useful features which are found in many low-end phones, the smartphones are missing out on:

1. Flashlight :

Almost every phone sports an LED flash (or two). Well, only a few of them have integrated the flashlight function into their softwares. The press of a button is going to help you navigate through a dark street or pick up your dropped parking tag from your cinema seat.

When you have the hardware already in place for it, why not add that small utility to the software, makers?

2. Near Field Communication Chips [NFCs] :

NFC is predicted to be an integrated part of our lives soon. Isn’t it time our phones start getting the hardware for it?

Let me go through this now. Two NFC enabled devices placed adjacently can communicate with each other, as the software directs them to. Say, a mobile phone can connect to the bluetooth headset when it’s brought near it, or your house door can open when I bring my phone near the sensor.

Notably, Cigs, Chennai has already made this technology available to rural areas around the city enabling the public to pay at shops with their mobile phones.

3. Notification Light :

A simple LED light at one corner of the device is all that we’re asking for. When you miss a call or receive a text message, let the light do the blinking and not the screen lighting itself. If we’re a couple metres away or the phone is inside a dark room, I can know the status of my phone without taking a look at it.

The Nokias seem to have got this recently, integrating a notification light in every smartphone that’s made in their stable. The other manufacturers need to awake.

4. Infrared :

Bluetooth allowed faster transfer of files and thus Infrared was dead. No, that can’t be the end!

A huge lot of devices work on infrared remote controls and back then, we could control them all with our infrared phone with a simple program which would learn our codes. That doubled up our phone’s purpose, shedding away the needs of having three more remote control boxes beside you on your couch.

5. Standard Charging ports :

Carrying our own chargers to every place we travel to is one heck of a job. Instead, if all phones had an universal port, convenience would be at its best. MicroUSB will the best option to proceed with, as it serves as a Data port as well.