How will the Android smartphones that we will see from here at the end of the year? Difficult to answer without a glass sphere that shows us the future, but what we have seen so far outlines very clear technological trends. 2020 will be the year of the 120 Hz screens of 5G, bigger and bigger cameras and bigger and bigger batteries. How do we say it? Just look at the first top of the range announced so far. These high-end products are expected to remain on the market until next year, keeping up with the devices that will come out in the coming months.
That's why Samsung's S20 range, or the new Oppo Find X2, draw a fairly clear picture of the technological trends of the near future, which for now seem to leave folding devices out of the mass market.
What does telephony have in store for 2020?
Samsung opened the season of the top of the range with the new Galaxy S20, at the top of which we find the Galaxy S20 Ultra. This model contains all the best technologies developed by Samsung, starting from 120 Hz QHD + screen. For now this refresh rate can only be used in Full HD + but the Korean company has already announced that through a future update it will be possible to increase the frequency even at maximum resolution. This feature seems common to the top of the range arriving in the coming months, starting with the next Oppo Find X Pro. Even Huawei, with its P40 Pro, seems to be pointing in this direction. Same thing for the next OnePlus 8, also in this case the 120 Hz display should be part of the budget.
It therefore seems that the high refresh rate has also been cleared through customs on smartphones, at least in the high end of the market, for a feature that we will see more and more often during the year.
Another element common to all the top of the 2020 range is 5G. From Qualcomm to Exynos processors from Samsung, passing through Kirin from Huawei, in the high end it seems that we will see a wide diffusion of the new standard. Between 120 Hz and 5G displays it will be interesting to observe what the impact on consumption will be, but the road is now marked. It is not a case that battery capacity is growing more and more.
Samsung with its S20 Ultra uses a 5000 mAh battery, with not really exceptional results in terms of autonomy, a sign that the energy consumption of smartphones is destined to rise inexorably, at least in the most advanced models. The Galaxy S20 Ultra however should represent the exception, the top of the range arriving during the year should have a battery of just over 4000 mAh, as indicated by the leaks leaked so far on the main Android smartphones.
Not only the batteries will increase in size, the cameras are also destined to have bigger and bigger sensors. Xiaomi Mi Note 10 and Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra have brought 108 Megapixels into telephony for example. Photo modules are also growing, to contain more cams. Wide angle, ToF, Macro, smartphones have more and more cameras, a trend that started already last year and that seems to be found also in the models arriving in the coming months.
But how do folding phones fit in the technological evolution promised by this 2020? In all likelihood, this year we will not see a mass diffusion of these devices, despite having a potentially very high innovative load. It seemed that the costs could decrease compared to the first models released in 2019 but the production problems, also exacerbated by the current global health emergency, do not seem to leave much hope.
