CONSUMER
TECH
THE
GAME-CHANGING TRENDS OF 2016
Consumer
tech moved fast this year -we're not talking about the innumerable upgrades
here but things that signalled a significant shift in direction. Hitesh Raj
Bhagat & Karan Bajaj share five trends from the year gone by
Goodbye
Headphone Jack
From the outside, the 3.5mm headphone jack looks quite tiny
-3.5mm refers the diameter of the plug here, but it does take up a lot more
room inside the device. Lack of space would seem like the most obvious reason
why the 3.5mm is getting the axe (after all, portable devices are getting
thinner and lighter all the time) but the truth is that there are several
reasons why everyone seems to be ditching it.
It's an open secret -the use of 3.5mm has been rife with
incompatibility. Ever noticed that headphones built for one device (especially
with remotes) never worked well with other devices?
The plug has been around for over 100 years, originally designed
for analog telephone switchboards. Everyone kept making little changes and
tweaks to it. Cellphones have had this port since the very beginning.
But now, for smarter devices, the analog 3.5mm is a huge
limitation -it's like a one-way street! Audio can flow from the device to the
headphones and that's about it. Newer standards can do twoway audio, can
transmit more power and even simultaneous data. This means accessories that
work better, sound better and work seamlessly across all devices.With digital
audio (either over Lightning or USB-C), manufacturers have greater control over
the signal, which means better sound. It can also mean active noise
cancellation without having batteries in headphones (coming soon, by the way).
It is an old, analog standard trying to survive amongst a sea of new-age,
digital natives.
Smartphones
With Dual Cameras
While we saw companies experimenting with dual camera setups in
2011 (LG Optimus 3D and HTC EVO 3D were amongst the first, we recall -though
the use case for only for 3D imagevideo capture), the technology properly
evolved for use in smartphones only in 2016. The year saw a push from various
brands for dual camera tech with devices including the LG G5, Huawei P9, Honor
8 as well as the iPhone 7 Plus.Implementation differs: sometimes, the cameras
work together to create a better image or enhanced depth while at other times,
the second camera could capture more light. Others like LG have introduced
smartphones with independent dual cameras: one is a super wide angle while one
is conventional. We're seeing dual cameras across price bands and from brands
like Xiaomi, Gionee, Coolpad, and LeEco. You can expect the trend to continue
in 2017, starting with CoolPad Cool 1 Dual and Honor 6x.
Affordable
Large Screen 4K TVs
Till a few months ago, a 55-inch or larger 4k smar t TV would
have easily cost over `1 lakh.
LeEco changed this by launching the Super 3 range of 4K Smart
TVs in India -`60,000 for the 55-inch and `1,00,000 for the 65-inch. This
surprised the consumer but also competitors who were charging a hefty premium
for these features. As a direct result of the LeEco TVs, the price of 4k smart
T V s t o o k a n o s e d ive a c ro s s screen sizes. Not just the smaller
brands but even LG, Sony and Samsung had price revisions. In 2017, LeEco is
expected to launch their Super 4 rang e of TVs.Xiaomi should also be launching
their budget smar t 4k TV in India. It's true that 4K content is still scarce,
but at least you can be future-proof at a pocketfriendly price!
Screens
With Tiny Bezels
016 saw a lot of work done on the display bezels -not just on
smartphones but on TVs and lap tops too. Curved screen phones were no longer
Samsung's forte -we saw smartphones with curved display from Xiaomi, Gionee and
even Vivo.This boosted the trend and by the end of the year, we're seeing sub
`10,000 smartphones with surprisingly slim bezels. TVs also needed a bit of
work to go slim-almost every brand big or small launched TVs with slim metal
bezels. Meanwhile, in laptops, the first real shocker was Dell's XPS 13 with
its Infinity display.Lenovo Yoga devices and Apple's new Macbook Pro with Touch
Bar also have impressively thin bezels, allowing for a more compact form factor
without sacrificing on the total screen size.
USB
Type-C Goes Mainstream
USB Type-C has seve r a l a dv a n t a g e s over the standard
USB microUSB port. It is reversible, offers faster data transfer speeds and
supports faster charging. These are good enough reasons to make the switch
-something that started in 2016. While smartphones with Type-C started to
arrive in early 2016, we saw the number of smartphones with the port grew
rapidly. By the end of 2016, we even have laptops that exclusively use USB Type-C
ports (Asus' Zenbook 3, Apple `s MacBook Pro and HP Folio, for instance) for
charging and peripherals. Many Android smartphones brands also moved to the USB
Type-C port and it has started to become a norm for premium as well as budget
smartphones. Even though this move has resulted in requirement of various
adapters on the laptops, the inclusion of USB Type-C port is expected to become
a standard in 2017.
Dec 29 2016 : The Economic Times (Mumbai)
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