There was a time when new phone launches felt exciting. Each year brought something that clearly moved things forward. But lately, it feels like we’ve hit a point where the spec sheets keep getting louder while the actual experience barely changes. The numbers go up, the marketing gets flashier, yet the way we use our phones day to day stays mostly the same.

So, instead of chasing whatever looks best on paper, it makes a lot more sense to look at what actually affects how a phone feels to use. That’s where the real difference is now.

Most processors today are already more than enough

Even mid-range chips are fast enough

Credit: Raghav Sethi/MakeUseOf

Every year, phone launches come with the same benchmark slides. One device scores a little higher than another, or there is a vague percentage showing a 15% performance improvement over last year. It all looks impressive on stage. But if you stop and think about it for a second, those numbers barely matter in everyday use.

Take a minute and list out the apps you use the most on your phone. There’s a good chance it’s a browser, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, Maps, TikTok, or maybe your camera. Unless you’re someone who genuinely plays heavy mobile games or edits video on your phone daily, you do not need a high-end chipset.

This is also why Samsung and Google use the same processor across both their base and Ultra or Pro variants. The chips are already powerful enough that going to an even higher tier would barely give you anything meaningful in return. The performance ceiling is already high enough that most people will never hit it.

Where I would still like to see improvement, though, is thermals. That’s the one area that still affects everyday use. I’ve had phones across different price segments throttle hard when navigating, while charging, or when using the phone outdoors. (I live in a place with really harsh summers.) I’ve even had screens dim to the point of being nearly unreadable simply because the device is trying not to overheat.

Bigger camera specs don’t automatically mean better photos

Image processing defines the final look

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Phone camera marketing loves numbers by talking about bigger sensors and higher megapixel counts. One of the most annoying smartphone trends is the idea that “more lenses = better camera,” where phones throw in a 2MP macro lens that does almost nothing except make the spec sheet look busier. A good primary sensor and proper optics are the foundation of any camera system. But a lot of what makes photos look good today comes from software, not just the lens.

You can see this clearly with zoom systems. That “100x zoom” everyone markets isn’t purely optical. Most of the time, the phone uses a 5x or 10x optical lens and then heavily relies on computational photography to crop, upscale, and reconstruct the image to make it look acceptable at higher zoom levels. The dramatic reach comes from software doing the heavy lifting, not the hardware itself.

Software can also make or break everyday photography. I’ve seen this firsthand. My current phone, the Galaxy S24 Ultra, has a camera system that is miles ahead of my old iPhone 14 on paper. But when I just want to point and shoot, I still feel like the iPhone handled those moments more consistently. With the S24 Ultra, I often switch into Pro mode and adjust settings to get the photo I know the hardware is capable of.

And this isn’t new. When I compared photos from an iPhone 14 to my old iPhone 5s, there were situations where the 5s actually produced better-looking portraits because the iPhone 14’s HDR processing was too aggressive at the time. Apple has thankfully improved that since then, but it’s a clear example that the software pipeline dictates the final image just as much as the camera hardware.

Those big numbers don’t mean what you think they do

What matters is how it holds up in real life

Credit: Amir Bohlooli / MUO

You might be completely wrong about what a lot of the numbers in phone marketing actually mean. Display brightness is the easiest example. Every launch now tries to one-up the last with “2500 nits” or “3300 nits.”

A nit is just a measure of how bright a screen can get, and it makes for an impressive number on a slide. But those peak brightness levels only happen in very specific situations, usually outside while viewing HDR content. Most of the time, your phone is nowhere near those numbers.

And even when it can reach them, perceived brightness doesn’t scale into a straight line. It’s logarithmic. So doubling the nit count doesn’t double how bright the screen looks. Once you’re comparing numbers like 2500 vs 3000 nits, the difference is basically imperceptible.

What matters more is how the phone handles light in real conditions. Reflectivity and anti-glare coatings have a bigger impact. My S24 Ultra is rated at around 2600 nits, but it’s noticeably easier to use outdoors than the Pixel 10 Pro, simply because Samsung’s anti-reflective coating is better. The supposed brightness advantage of the Pixel doesn’t translate to real usability.

Credit: Raghav Sethi/MakeUseOf

Battery life follows the same pattern. Phones are now shipping with 6000 or 7000 mAh batteries, but that doesn’t automatically mean longer endurance. Software efficiency, display power draw, and modem performance matter more. That’s why iPhones, with smaller batteries on paper, still keep up or even pull ahead.

A great example is the iPhone 17. It actually has a smaller battery than the 16 Plus, but lasts longer thanks to efficiency improvements, especially from the new C1 modem, which reduces power usage during everyday connectivity. The point is that spec numbers look impressive, but they rarely tell you how the phone will actually feel to use.

Software experience matters more than hardware numbers

It’s all a software game now

This is really the part that matters now. We’ve reached a point where the hardware in most phones is already perfectly fine for what we use them for. The big spec differences don’t change much anymore. It’s all a software game now.

Even in the AI space, you can see the difference clearly. Apple tried to build Apple Intelligence with on-device processing as the focus, and the result feels pretty mediocre right now. Meanwhile, Google and others have put more effort into the actual software experience, even if that means relying more on the cloud, and the results are genuinely more useful.

Even outside of AI, it mostly comes down to what kind of experience you want. If someone just wants something simple where everything works consistently, and they want things like FaceTime or iMessage without having to think about it, I would just recommend an iPhone. It’s the easiest and least stressful option.

But if someone wants more control or customization, like being able to sideload apps, tweak how the phone looks, or simply get more value on a tighter budget, then Android makes a lot more sense. It gives you the flexibility that iOS doesn’t. There isn’t a single “best” phone anymore. The hardware is good across the board. What matters now is which software approach fits you better.

Use the phone that feels right for you

We’re no longer in the phase where every new phone brings a dramatic leap forward. Everyone has different needs and different preferences, and that’s fine. There isn’t one perfect phone anymore, and there doesn’t need to be. What matters is using the one that feels comfortable and natural for you, not the one with the biggest numbers printed next to its name.

The real differences now come from the things that don’t fit neatly on a spec sheet. How a phone feels to use and whether it actually fits into your life.