The Best and Worst of Mobile in 2022
In that location are no fixed winners in the tech world. It'southward never the end of the story. Things can always change. In 2022, some of the mighty fell a few notches, but others recovered from a rough few years.
We said goodbye to the struggling Firefox OS, but BlackBerry continues to hang on. The Apple/Google state of war rages unquenched. Here at PCMag, we reviewed effectually 100 phones (mostly Android) and twoscore or so tablets (mostly Windows), which shows in that location are a lot of choices in mobile tech, fifty-fifty if you may have to hunt to detect some of them on the shelves.
I've been post-obit the mobile world for a dozen years now, and it takes more than to impress me than information technology used to. Here's my best and worst of 2022 in mobile.
The Worst of Mobile 2022
1. Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810
After dominating the smartphone chip world near as long as smartphone chips accept existed, Qualcomm made a serial of embarrassing flubs this year.
Its flagship Snapdragon 810 lacked the company's signature custom CPU cores, making it harder for Qualcomm to compete with Mediatek and Samsung. Early versions had notorious overheating problems, and later versions couldn't differentiate on operation compared to other industry leaders. While Qualcomm still makes the best modems in the business, information technology needs to come back hard with the Snapdragon 820 to regain the faith of major customers like Samsung.
ii. Every Android Tablet Over $100
Yawn. While Windows 10 roared this year with a slew of different price points, form factors, and productivity features, Android snoozed. All we saw from major mid- to high-tier Android tablet manufacturers were incremental changes, none of them addressing why you lot would want an Android tablet rather than an iPad (with better entertainment apps) or a Windows tablet (with better productivity apps). Interesting tablets fell left and correct. Nvidia had to remember the Shield, Samsung killed the Milky way Note tablet line, and the Google Pixel C was almost unusably buggy, putting the capstone on a twelvemonth in which Google seemed uncertain almost Android's purpose.
3. All Smartwatches, Except the Pebble
Smartwatches are a perfect example of a product category that manufacturers are trying to foist on united states of america without ever explaining why nosotros might want them. Android Habiliment watches are too like, take disruptive UIs, and prepare your phone'due south battery on burn. The Apple Scout has sold very well as a fashion item, just information technology also pretty much gutters out when you try to movement its utility across notifications. At least the Pebble line embraces the fact that nobody knows what to practice with these things beyond showing notifications.
4. The U.S. Handset Duopoly
In nearly of the world, smartphone makers compete vigorously at every price level. Huawei, Sony, Xiaomi, and local manufacturers like Micromax and Wileyfox all have their strengths. Not so hither in the U.S., where the smartphone market is so dominated by Apple tree and Samsung that information technology freezes everyone else out. Apple and Samsung now own 87 pct of U.S. postpaid telephone sales, up half-dozen percentage from last twelvemonth. That means we're getting fewer various options, less contest, and less innovation than other nations.
v. Windows 10 Mobile
What a shambling disaster. On phones, Microsoft is still a circular firing squad. New devices main Panos Panay seemed unimpressed with the Lumia 950 and 950XL, which are getting very low-primal launches in the U.S. The Os, meanwhile, is nevertheless extremely buggy. Another own goal in a series of own goals.
The Five All-time Things in Mobile for 2022
My v favorite things of 2022 don't include whatever phones. That'southward on purpose. There were a lot of good phones this year: the iPhone 6s, the Galaxy S6, the Moto Ten Pure Edition, the LG V10, the Huawei Mate S. Merely subsequently personally reviewing 648 phones for PCMag, information technology'due south hard for me to choose one unless information technology'southward a huge jump forwards.
There are a few things I considered adding to this list, but they're not quite there yet, similar VR. I considered Apple's 3D Touch, which is really neat, but hasn't had enough 3rd-political party uptake. I really wanted to put in USB-C, but information technology needs another yr. But these five things hit the market with a bang this year.
one. T-Mobile/Sprint Contest
The Uncarrier was the great story of 2022, with T-Mobile roaring back to become a real LTE competitor in the U.Due south. Now we have T-Mobile and Sprint duking it out, thank you to a much-improved Sprint LTE network and Dart'south combative CEO, Marcelo Claure. The U.South. strategy of refusing to let the large carriers merge from four down to three is paying off handsomely, as they're all aggressively improving their networks and undercutting each others' prices. While we nonetheless pay more than for our mobile data than people in many other countries, our situation'southward a lot better than information technology would be with fewer competitors.
2. Periscope and the Livestreaming Revolution
I mocked Meerkat when it first came out, but now I accept to requite a big nod to the democratization of livestreaming. A big part of my original mockery was because I had to shift paradigms; I grew upwardly with the first generation of camgirls, and I really did see the current livestreaming moment as merely more narcissism. Yes, it often is narcissism (see Martin Shkreli playing his guitar to teenagers), simply it'south also a major change in the way we're communicating online.
3. Windows 10, on everything except phones
Windows 10 on desktops, laptops and tablets is vivid. Windows ten cured the fungal diseases afflicting Windows eight.one and has led Microsoft into a artistic new globe of two-in-1s and convertibles, led by the excellent Surface Pro four. Windows 10 is killing Apple tree and Google when it comes to offering comprehensive productivity solutions that are still portable, but don't compromise.
4. The Amazon Fire
The Amazon Fire, the first decent $50 tablet, is absolutely terrific, and marks a whole new product category. We've seen really cheap tablets for a while now, but they've nigh all been very low-quality, gray-market place imports. With the brilliant thought of a half dozen-pack for $250, Amazon makes quality tablets an impulse buy, giving you i for every room of your firm and every child in your family unit. Amazon has redeemed itself from the Burn Phone.
5. The Apple tree Pencil
The iPad Pro is a big iPad. But the Apple tree Pencil is a quantum leap. It'due south ridiculously ameliorate than whatever other stylus on the market, fifty-fifty ameliorate than Wacom products. I'd venture that it'southward better than the Cintiq, although I know that's controversial. Now that Samsung seems to accept inexplicably killed its formerly excellent Galaxy Note ten.1 line of tablets, the Pencil is the best portable note-taking and drawing implement out there.
Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/mobile-phones/9121/the-best-and-worst-of-mobile-in-2015
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