Smartphones in 2018: the half year report

01 July 2018
It's hard to believe that we're halfway through 2018! So let's press 'pause' for a second and look back at the phones launched this year, pull out some stats and identify some of the key trends for 2018 to date

Sort by:

  • R
  • Rick
  • Kxc
  • 01 Jul 2018

Shanti Dope, 01 Jul 2018Glad to be part of the 15% Android 7.1.2 users with my Redm... moreJust install custom roms, such as lineageOS to get the latest android and security patches. And for camera maybe you can use unofficial gcam to slightly improve the quality of the image

    Nice article. The chart in the Ram and Storage section measures RAM in megabytes. I don't know if it was intentional or accidental.

      And now let's compare flagships. All have glass back. More than half of them have a notch. All have stretched screen ratio, that's good only in portrait mode. Less than half of them still have headphone jack.
      Sooo boooring.

        Glad to be part of the 15% Android 7.1.2 users with my Redmi 5 Plus, and I blame myself for not having the Android 8.0 Oreo because I will get hated if I blame it on Xiaomi.

        My competitors are already on Oreo. My colleagues' phones are already having the best experience of Android Oreo, while I'm still here waiting for that.
        Not to mention the fact that I'm the only one with a 5MP front camera while my friends have at least 8MP, heck even dual 13+2mp.

          So the non-usefulness trend continues.
          Very pricey bad snap it cameras, sold as multi-media viewing devices with atrociously bad audio quality, with no more capability than a ten year old HTC hd2, today's devices do no more, they just do it faster.. Apparently, it would seem only us old farts know what decent audio sounds like, so everyone else is quite happy to listen to digital audio through poxy headphones or even worse, earbuds, or if fitted awful limited rear facing mono mini speaker, looks more and more like the HTC m7 etc was the high point of devices as half decent multi-media devices. More and more camera modules, all with the same problem that will always limit their capability, phones keep getting bigger and bigger but cam modules still have tiny lenses, so half the cpu/gpu grunt is used to drive software to make up with processing what half usable pics the lack of light gathering capabilities caused by sticking with tiny cam modules, there is plenty of room in many devices for cam mods at least 100% bigger, but no rumours that any maker is going to try bigger cam mods or even just bigger lenses. My next phone will either be an old HTC m series or ZTE axon 7 (full size) !!! as there is no point in buying anything newer, as we have gone backwards in capabilities but up in price..


            Gsmarena didn't observe the bezelless screen trend from the first Mi Mix till now. How many vendors and smartphone using this bezelless screen?

              Jamesschwarz987, 01 Jul 2018Also, this year is the year of trends : 1. Notch. 2. ET s... more5. Even more, the removal of fingerprint sensor so you need to deal with that face unlock.

              I hope someday someone would rethink of a multiple security feature, fingerprint + biometrical face unlock / iris scanner.

                Jamesschwarz987, 01 Jul 2018Also, this year is the year of trends : 1. Notch. 2. ET s... moreBut not only stupid trends, in this year finally some vendors (of course Apple is an exception) realized its quality of small sized dual camera sensors and finally increased their sensor size, from 1/3" to 1/2.55" (mostly). But still, that STILL small.

                  Also, this year is the year of trends :
                  1. Notch.
                  2. ET screen ratio for "more screen space in small size" (18:9, 18.5:9, 19.5:9 etc).
                  3. The removal of 3.5 mm audio jack (say good bye to high quality audios and welcome to the dongle and bluetooth-connected things).
                  4. The reborn if Face Unlock (yes, only by a camera (or maybe two))

                    Notches

                      Black phones are always popular.
                      Expect companies to reach their asked prices on their flagships to $2000 for the next couple of years.

                        3 of 3