Will smartphones ever become too powerful?

[kennethk]

I was digging around and read up on the snapdragon 8 gen 1 and that things looking like a beast. I haven't really owned what was considered a top of the line smartphone since the s8 I've been a midrange user since then using the oneplus nord, sure it's not as good as high end devices but it gets the job done for most of my needs and was under my $250 asking price. 

 

With specs getting so good it got me thinking as tech always done will smartphones ever just feel like way too over powered for their intended daily task users? Assuming most everyone runs emulation on their phone that wants a powerhouse or may want to do light work. 

 

I just one day see standard smartphones being so powerful that you'll have no reason to complain about buying a sub pair $300 smartphone if that makes any sense. Or could they even be as powerful as your main rigs or do exactly what they can someday. 

 

Technology always advances but hope some get my thinking about this topic. I just feel like we'll have so many options there may just not be a reason to go out and buy the latest Samsung launch or whatever because a midrange device for half the cost may just be as good if not the same in future time. 

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

19 minutes ago, kennethk said:

could they even be as powerful as your main rigs

With higher power budgets and more robust cooling solutions, larger systems will always be more powerful than portable ones.

[Tech87]

25 minutes ago, kennethk said:

I was digging around and read up on the snapdragon 8 gen 1 and that things looking like a beast. I haven't really owned what was considered a top of the line smartphone since the s8 I've been a midrange user since then using the oneplus nord, sure it's not as good as high end devices but it gets the job done for most of my needs and was under my $250 asking price. 

 

With specs getting so good it got me thinking as tech always done will smartphones ever just feel like way too over powered for their intended daily task users? Assuming most everyone runs emulation on their phone that wants a powerhouse or may want to do light work. 

 

I just one day see standard smartphones being so powerful that you'll have no reason to complain about buying a sub pair $300 smartphone if that makes any sense. Or could they even be as powerful as your main rigs or do exactly what they can someday. 

 

Technology always advances but hope some get my thinking about this topic. I just feel like we'll have so many options there may just not be a reason to go out and buy the latest Samsung launch or whatever because a midrange device for half the cost may just be as good if not the same in future time. 

I would make the argument that there's no need to be buying the latest flagships from Samsung and Apple right now.

 

It's a marketing ploy, and the companies have done a good job into convincing consumers that they need to upgrade their devices every year to get the latest and greatest tech, even though the fact is most folks don't need the upgrade.

[suedseefrucht]

1 hour ago, kennethk said:

I just one day see standard smartphones being so powerful that you'll have no reason to complain about buying a sub pair $300 smartphone if that makes any sense.

Isn't that the case already?
I only bought a new mobile phone, when something really useful arrived.
I upgraded from infrared communication and no MP3 support to bluetooth and MP3 support

and from no WLAN to WLAN.

From then I only bought a new one when the old one was broken.

And since I only use it for texting, browsing, music and rarely photos, the performance is more than enough.

[kennethk]

13 minutes ago, suedseefrucht said:

Isn't that the case already?
I only bought a new mobile phone, when something really useful arrived.
I upgraded from infrared communication and no MP3 support to bluetooth and MP3 support

and from no WLAN to WLAN.

From then I only bought a new one when the old one was broken.

And since I only use it for texting, browsing, music and rarely photos, the performance is more than enough.

It's a start but no, if you just care about light work sure but there are still many bugs in os and things they still aren't powerful enough to do. I think some just don't realize how scary powerful future portables can become. 

 

Imagine 8k video downloaded within 2 minutes, full albums transfered within a second, the ability to have 2tb as bare laughable storage minimum on your device much as we laugh at 8gb on board storage these days. Many under estimate the science behind what future upgrade are capable of without having to shovel out a crap ton of money. 

[suedseefrucht]

4 minutes ago, kennethk said:

Imagine 8k video

5 minutes ago, kennethk said:

Many under estimate the science behind what future upgrade are capable of

Many think that progress never stops.

Things might get smaller and more energy efficient.

But who seriously needs 8K or 200 FPS > 25 kHz Audio bandwidth?

If you can't see the pixels anymore, you can't see the pixels anymore.

 

[kennethk]

9 minutes ago, suedseefrucht said:

Many think that progress never stops.

Things might get smaller and more energy efficient.

But who seriously needs 8K or 200 FPS > 25 kHz Audio bandwidth?

If you can't see the pixels anymore, you can't see the pixels anymore.

 

When has that ever stopped a manufacturer though it's simply hey look at what I can achieve. I get what you're saying but they'll do it just because they can do it. Heck I still think the lcd display on my vita is beautiful even compared to oled. It's a generation gap thing imo also. Newer generations won't be all that impressed but older generations that lived off crt will be amazed and I mean the ones that aren't all that tech savvy with it. A big problem with manufacturers and the general public are is that big cooperates don't expect its audience to research and see past the bs marketing. 

[Imbadatnames]

Qualcomm are still a few years behind apple in performance. Apple generally support phones for ages so need an overpowered SoC so it can run iOS in 5 years time. From what I know Qualcomm purposefully sandbags androids long term support. 

[Zodiark1593]

On 1/10/2022 at 6:40 AM, Gab729 said:

The thing in mobile device they need to balance, power efficency, batterie life, heat and perdormance, in a small form factor and compromise need to be made. They wont be able to replace a full rig what ever marketing will say, they are made for different usage

Peak performance is actually quite high in modern smartphones, especially Apple’s. The rapid ramp up speeds are a particular speciality of mobile devices that allow their peak performance to be useful, while not needlessly burning battery life. 
 

Sustained performance needs more average power and cooling budget however.