How one tweak is ruining the smart world?

The world has been revolutionized because of the smart phones in the past decade and turned into a giant, ever-evolving planet of smart technology. The smartphones have transformed our lives completely and made unimaginable things possible in a matter of seconds. Now I won’t waste time on evaluating how smartphones are kind of a necessity today, but I’m going to throw light on one of the most important yet overlooked aspects of modern day smartphones.

How one tweak is really making the smart world, ‘unsmart’ or rather dumb?

All of us use smartphones primarily for the various apps, internet, entertainment & office work. Needless to say today’s smartphones have made photography, utilities & all the other things so easy. But what is a still more primary purpose which they serve? Anyone can guess it; it is called ‘communication’! So for this communication we need ‘SIM cards’ and obviously to store those infinite number of videos & photos we need memory/storage.  Being a part of this smart world, I would like to assume that none of us want to compromise on either of those 2 needs isn’t it? But that’s precisely what is being overlooked!

‘Hybrid SIM slots’ are ruining today’s exponentially expanding smartphone technology. One has to choose between either keeping your official and personal SIM cards or data & calling SIM cards separate or having the chance to expand the internal memory of a smartphone to store all your data. I mean how is this fair when we pay right from 5000 to more than 50,000 bucks for these devices? I have thought about this, have you & more importantly have the manufacturers thought about this? You can get great phones for photography, internet browsing, gaming, multi-tasking & visual experiences etc. all in a device except having the basic provision of dual SIMs and micro SD card slots. Yes! Basic provisions! Should I buy one phone for all the above tasks & another phone just to store my data or to insert another SIM into it? I mean it is hilarious if you look at it. You spend about 15-20k or even 40k for your device which has a hybrid SIM slot or to worsen the pain, it has just a single SIM with the so called ‘flagship’ devices not allowing a SD card slot at all!

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  A hybrid SIM slot

  For me buying a smartphone with a hybrid SIM slot is like choosing between a toilet & bathroom while buying a 30 lac apartment! Now that’s a very tough decision isn’t it? If I start to think about phones with single SIMs & non-expandable memory, it is like a house with just a living room & bathroom (or toilet). You can guess what’s missing! Because, frankly speaking 16gb and 32gb limited storage never do serve the needs unless you don’t click photos or shoot videos and do not use any social media, which is obviously rare these days.

  Of course there is this valid argument with the phones having 64 or 128 gigs of internal storage that serve the data storage purpose, but then more often than not such phones which are normally the flagship ones come with just a single SIM and are priced exorbitantly high. I mean, I could buy external hard disks instead of buying those 128 gigs devices man!  And in spite of the data storage issue being solved, what about the second SIM slot?

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  Single SIM card slots

  There are some super powerful smartphones out there which compel you to buy them no matter what device you use but when I see ‘single SIM’ or ‘expandable storage not available’ or ‘hybrid SIM slot’, my heart woes! I wonder how it is so hard to provide those 3 slots in any device these days. This one tweak has made me cancel my plans for buying at least 5 magnificent phones this year itself and I can only imagine how many more out there have had the same problem. I would really really really appreciate that the manufacturers realize this problem and give us phones which are powerful and which take us closer to owning a close to perfect smartphone.

  This article was to stir up your thoughts and make you think twice before buying a new smartphone. Do comment and share this article as much as possible if you like it.

  – Chinmay Bapat