MadManOriginal (in other thread) wrote:I disagree wholeheartedly that it's more about software than hardware! My fantasy device's hardware is nothing like anything out there right now:What I'd like to see is things that aren't sexy specs but would make phones (and tablets) better in real day-to-day use. For example, better WiFi speed than single stream, better battery life although I know that's just a matter of time and depends a lot on the screen, a genuine focus on audio quality both for headphone and built-in speakers, excellent camera optics although that's a hard one due to basic physical constraints. Otherwise at this point it's more about software than hardware.
- basic 480p, 540p, or perhaps even 720p screen, ~5"
- no microphone or speakers built-in, just simple buzzer vibe
- Lots of RAM (4GB dual-channel)
- a fast quad-core processor (A15s or even an AMD x86)
- Powerful graphics similar to PSVita or current top-end superphones
- 3.5mm headphone jack with capable amplifier
- 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0+, and NFC
- expandable storage (some sort of tiny mSATA- or M-PCIe-derived expansion instead of crapass SD cards)
- HDMI connection
- Moderate-resolution camera (~3-4MP is fine) with excellent motion and low-light features
Of course, nobody would ever market such a device:
- Fat and unstylish by modern standards
- Poor screen quality compared to similarly priced devices
- Low megapixel camera unimpressive at a glance
- HDMI is a little-used feature on smartphones
- Difficult to market expensive and difficult-to-implement "nerd" features (such as fast CPU/GPU or mSATA) to the mass market
- Requirement for external headset (bluetooth/wired) or HDMI device for audio
- Relatively poor battery life due to high-powered processors (though I'd include a huge removable battery personally)
- Impossible to force artificial segmentation with removable storage
edit: fixed a few typos and changed 3.5" to 3.5mm