Exploring Smartphone Components and Their Function
Aoi Kashiwa
Have you ever wondered about components of smartphones we use in our everyday life from calling, chatting to taking photos, listening to music, and watching videos, as well as their function? Compared to old smartphones or cellular phones as known as cell phones in 1990s and early 2000s that only have features of calling and messaging, smartphones nowadays have a lot of features including features that computers have like Internet access, entertainment, and editing media. We can use those various features not with multiple devices, but only with one device, which is a smartphone. There are many different components forming smartphones that enable their features and the smartphone itself to work properly. From what can be seen, there are a liquid crystal display also known as an LCD, a front-facing camera and a rear-facing camera, speakers, a charging port, and an audio jack. However, there are actually more components inside the smartphone. Let us explore the components of smartphones and their function in this article.
The first component of smartphones is the display. The display is what we see first when we try to interact with the smartphone. It is essential because without a display, we cannot interact with, control, and use the smartphone. As a result, we cannot do anything with the smartphone. The functions of a display include displaying and accessing all information from the smartphone while interacting with the users through touch screens. Smartphones now has two main types of display, which are based on LCDs and based on LEDs. On an LCD-based display, the light is not being produced by the display itself, but the light is being produced by the light behind the display, while on an LED-based display, the light is being produced by the display itself with different vibrant colors (What’s Inside My Smartphone?, 2022).
The second one is the battery. It is necessary because smartphones do not work without a battery. Of course, they also need a battery to work as they use electricity and are for people to carry around. If they are plugged in to the outlet all the time, we cannot carry them around. Usually, they use a lithium-ion battery though there are other types of the battery used for them, such as the nickel-cadmium battery and the nickel metal hydride battery. The battery typically lasts for around 24 hours depending on how we use the smartphone, and the charging time takes 1 to 2 hours.
The third one is the system-on-a-chip or SoC. It is an integrated circuit also known as IC that integrates all components or basically the whole computer system onto it (What is a System on Chip (SoC)?). It does not only consist of the processor or CPU that does all the processing tasks, but GPU that processes graphic tasks like videos, LTE modem that is for receiving and sending text messages and calls, RAM, the short-term storage, ROM, the permanent storage, input devices like microphone and output devices like speakers, so it is the most important component of smartphones.
The fourth one is the memory or storage. RAM (Random Access Memory) or simply memory is a place to store and access data only for short term. It is used for CPU to open applications and do complex tasks. Additionally, it is often said that RAM is the work desk. The higher the capacity of RAM, the faster the CPU can work on the tasks. Most smartphones today have around 8GB of RAM. Also, in smartphones, there is internal storage where data is stored permanently. The capacity can be from 32GB up to 256GB, but recently there is storage up to 1TB for smartphones. Sometimes, the storage capacity written in specifications is not the same value as running on the smartphone. In fact, only around 85% of the total capacity can be used for personal use because the smartphone’s operating system and pre-installed applications need to use that initial internal storage (What’s Inside My Smartphone?, 2022). Other than that storage, many smartphones have a socket or place to put an external memory card like SD cards for us to add more storage except iPhone which does not let us add external storage.
The fifth one is the modems. As written in the paragraph of the SoC’s explanations, modems are communication devices for text messages and calls. Today, 4G is the most common networks. However, in the past, 2G, 3G or even 1G were the most common networks. In recent years, 5G networks also came out. As well as that, the network connection is getting faster.
The sixth one is the camera. All smartphones have at least one camera either a front-facing camera or a rear-facing camera and most smartphones have both. Cameras are obviously for taking photos and videos. Not only that, but they are also used for scanning documents and QR code. Smartphone cameras incorporate three main parts, the sensor which detects light, the lens which is the component the light comes through, and the image processor. Each sensor behaves differently in each smartphone, so every image or video taken will be different in contrast, color accuracy, saturation, and such compared to other smartphones (What’s Inside My Smartphone?, 2022).
The seventh one is the sensors. Smartphones have many kinds of sensors, including but not limited to accelerometer, gyroscope, digital compass, ambient light sensor, and proximity sensor. An accelerometer detects the orientation of the device. It means the smartphone can detect shakes. A gyroscope works with accelerometer to detect the rotation of the device. It is used for playing driving games that needs tilting the smartphone, for example. A digital compass is just like a regular compass showing the direction of North for map or navigation applications. An ambient light sensor is a sensor that detects surrounding light. Because of this sensor, smartphones can adjust their screens’ brightness to the surrounding light environment. If it is dark, then the screen will be darker and if it is bright, the screen will be brighter, so it can be seen. A proximity sensor detects the nearness of a smartphone screen to something. It is used when calling, for instance. If we put the smartphone near our ears, the screen will be black and avoid the ear to press anything showed on the screen. In short, these sensors allow us to use a lot of features offered by the sensors without buying specialized devices for each sensor, as well as make smartphones smarter.
In conclusion, there are the display which is essential for us to control the smartphone, the battery which is necessary for smartphones to work, the system-on-a-chip or SoC which is an integrated circuit that integrates all components, the memory or storage which is the work desk and the place to store data, the modem which is the communication device, the camera which is for taking photos and videos, and many sensors that detect the situation of smartphones, as the components of smartphones. To summarize, smartphones work properly by these many different components in them functioning differently and forming a device called a smartphone. Moreover, potential future developments of smartphone components would be a strong display for people who often drop their smartphones, longer battery life that lasts for more than a day, larger capacity of memory and storage up to 32GB for memory and up to 2TB for storage, two SD card slots, better camera with higher resolution, and more sensors, such as humidity sensors and smoke sensors for detecting fire. Smartphones will definitely keep growing until people stop using them.
References:
Das, S. (2023). Mobile Phone Parts. https://www.mobilecellphonerepairing.com/mobile-phone-parts.html
What is a System on Chip (SoC)?. https://anysilicon.com/what-is-a-system-on-chip-soc/
What’s Inside My Smartphone? — An In-Depth Look At Different Components Of A Smartphone. (2022). https://fossbytes.com/whats-inside-smartphone-depth-look-parts-powering-everyday-gadget/