Will Smartphones Fix Their Biggest Problem in 2018?

Will smartphones change the world in 2018? Probably not, but there are lots of expectations from the world's most popular consumer technology product. On this episode of Orbital, reviews editor Jamshed Avari and games editor Rishi Alwani join host Pranay Parab to look at potential smartphone trends of 2018. We begin this episode by talking about the bezel-free design trend that picked up pace in 2017 and look at how that could change in the coming year. We also talk about the various compromises that phone makers have had to make to accommodate this design choice. 

Then we discuss a controversial topic - biometrics. Do you really need a convenience feature for the security of your smartphone? Rishi and Jamshed explain this in detail. We talk about upcoming biometric technologies that could gain mass adoption in 2018 as well. Then we mention artificial intelligence and how that could change smartphones this year.

Next we discuss some of our biggest pain points with smartphones, starting with battery life. Here we talk about how this could improve in 2018 and what phone makers can do to improve this. Android updates inevitably enter the discussion and we talk about 2018 being the big year for Oreo and what Google is doing to improve this adoption rate. We also mention the flagship chipset race across smartphone platforms and how that could shape up in 2018. Finally we talk about digital payments in India and how that could gain rapid adoption in 2018.

That's all for this week's episode of Orbital, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, or just hit the play button below.