Lenovo, Sony and Marshall London: on-trend smartphones at this year's IFA
Some smartphone trends come and go but the selfie is clearly here to stay. All of which means that phonemakers are trying harder and harder to make their devices even more appealing for pursuers of this particular digital pastime.
"Selfies are now the most popular type of photos snapped on a smartphone, with over a million selfies taken a day and 48% of that are shared on Facebook alone," said Lenovo's Jerry Hsiao.
And that's why the company created the Vibe S1, the world's first handset with dual front-facing cameras for literally adding a new dimension to the digital self-portrait.
An 8-megapixel camera shoots the main image while another 2-megapixel unit adds depth. This not only allows for the sorts of effects capable with a professional DSLR camera in terms of foreground or background focus but also focus shift for eliminating elements in an image such.
And of course there is a suite of clever effects for cropping people out of pictures, changing backgrounds or adding other effects.
"People expect more from their smartphones today. Capturing precious moments alone or with friends and family is not enough anymore. They want their selfies to stand out in their social media circles. We carefully listened to the consumers' desires and designed the VIBE S1 based on those insights," said Hsiao.
That's also why it has a massive 160GB of on-board storage plus expansion via microSD card, good for 40,000 images, the company claims.
The camera is also the star turn of Sony's new flagship phablet, the Xperia Z5 Premium. It is the first device to get an Exmor RS sensor that can handle 23 megapixels of imagery and can do so faster than any other auto-focusing smartphone on the market. That alone should put it in a class of its own in terms of rear-camera performance. However it is also the world's first handset to boast a full 4K display.
It also offers high definition 24-bit music playback. "Since users already create, share and enjoy most of their content on the go -- we've set out to bring Sony's latest innovations in camera, design and display to ensure the Xperia Z5 series is the best possible lifestyle and entertainment platform," said Hiroki Totoki, President and CEO at Sony Mobile Communications.
But for those that put a priority on music above all else, this year's event saw the first official demonstrations of the Marshall London smartphone. It runs Android and is designed to look like one of the amps that The Who's Pete Townsend enjoyed smashing up on a regular basis. It boasts dual headphone jacks, a dedicated graphic equalizer for getting the sound just right, a DJing app, audio recorder good for capturing songwriting on the go, dual front-facing stereo speakers and microphones and, of course, support for higher resolution FLAC music files.
