Every year we see more and more
improvement in the mobile technology sector but have we reached a point where
the smartphone is actually more powerful than the laptop I write this on? Well
that’s what we’re here to find out. We’re going to compare devices and
see which wins in different components and areas. The focus will be on modern
flagship smartphones and Ultrabooks. An Ultrabook is defined by their inventor
Intel as “a thinner and longer-lasting laptop that doesn’t compromise on
performance”. This summarises to me the nearest example in cutting-edge
laptops designed for home use.
Battery life
The LG G5, the newest in the LG
phone G-series, has a battery of, according to Telefonica, 20 hours talk time,
but other sources are saying with heavy constant use its only 7 hours, as we
all know with battery power it has to be taken with a pinch of salt and is
often significantly lower than stated but these are the facts. The LG gram, the
newest ultrabook from LG, has a battery of 7 hours. So comparatively, and with
proper use, both devices are actually on par in terms of power sustainability.
However, LG were slated greatly for their previous battery life in other models
so would have researched and focused more on battery development this time
round. I myself had an LG G3 and the battery was astoundingly bad, dying within
only 4 hours of usage. You do think, with the larger size of the LG and its
greater technology, the win would go to the laptop but being a full HD display
and an i7 powering the ultrabook you can understand the issue. Another
comparison is the Samsung S7 and the Macbook pro both having 9 hours battery
life which shows just how neck and neck the comparison is. The battle for the
longest battery is one than neither technology’s really excel in and indeed all
devices feeling the plight of the battery.
Processor
Processing power has often been
an issue in the smartphone world, trying to make a more powerful chip to handle
the higher demands of the modern device whilst not compromising on battery
life. They have come on leaps and bounds since the original smartphone though,
this technically being the IBM Simon but commercially the Apple iPhone. A
comparison showing the sheer difference in technology would be that Apple’s
flagship iPhone, the 6s, has the A9, a dual-core 1.8ghz processor and 2GB RAM
and the MacBook Pro sports a quad-core i7 Processor running at 2.5GHz with 16GB
RAM, decimating the iPhone in processing power and memory, obviously. The
i7, an integral part of any modern ultrabook, surpasses any smartphone chip
including the previously discussed A9 and the very common Snapdragon chipset,
this is just due to the level of expectation we have of our laptops compared to
the phone, from streaming content to multitab browsing, music and resource
heavy programs.
Portability and display
Mobile devices these days are
much more powerful than ever before, capable of handling most tasks we require
and there’s no question that a smartphone is obviously more convenient.
However, for a smartphone to seriously take over the laptop in terms of
preference, the phone would need a keyboard docking station and this would seriously
hinder the benefit of the smartphone. Screen quality is almost visibly on par
with both modern smartphones and ultrabooks having HD displays, but the pixels
per inch (ppi) is really quite different with the Microsoft Surface Book having 267 ppi but the
Samsung S7 has 576 ppi. This, according to research, is nothing more than a
gimmick after a certain point as the human eye cannot differentiate anything
higher than 300ppi.
So there we have it, have we
reached a point where the smartphone has made the laptop an outdated and
unnecessary piece of equipment? No we haven’t, or at least most of us haven’t
gotten there yet for day to day tasks. The smartphone has definitely dominated portability,
on-the-go work and in particular browsing the web, with Google now even
filtering search results via mobile-friendliness forcing companies into the
mobile market but word processing, file editing and other more complex tasks
are easily won by the laptop due to processing power, usability and screen
size. One thing’s for certain, I myself, and I’m sure many others, wouldn’t
want to lose either of my devices and definitely need both on a daily basis.
Share this facts to your friends…
Source: thefactsite
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