5 Important Smartphone Specs You Keep Ignoring

Smartphone manufacturers are getting really smart nowadays, and this is because they know the exact specs to throw in your face to try to convince you that their phones are the best for you.

Most of these manufacturers are going to hype the massive battery, the premium design of the phone, bragging about the durability, the high refresh rate display, and sometimes the super-fast charging.

In this article, I will focus on some little details or specs that you usually don’t bother to check, but you really should.

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PWM Dimming (Pulse Width Modulation)

First off, let’s start with PWM dimming (Pulse Width Modulation). This is an important display feature because it helps your smartphone maintain accurate colors and strong contrast, especially at low brightness levels. It works by rapidly flickering the screen to control brightness, and this flicker happens so fast that most people don’t notice it.

 However, the flicker rate varies from phone to phone. For example, the iPhone 17 Pro has a PWM rate of around 480Hz, while some cheaper phones like the Redmi Note 15 can reach up to 3,840Hz.

The downside to this is that it can cause headaches or eye strain for users with eye sensitivity due to flicker, so if you want the value of your phone's display to remain top-notch even at low brightness, make sure your next phone has PWM Dimming.

Touch Sampling Rate

Still on the display, the next so obvious but super important spec or feature you want to check out before you pay for your next phone is the touch sampling rate, which simply means the number of times that your phone's display actually checks to know if you are touching it, swiping, or scrolling, then processes a response accordingly or immediately.

This explains the reason why you will see a 120Hz refresh rate on a budget phone, but it will not be smooth or fast when you compare it to the same 120Hz refresh rate in a flagship phone like the S26 Ultra.

This particular feature is most important for gamers who want their phones to be able to detect and process rapid taps on the screen while they are gaming, as they end up losing the game.

So the next time you buy a smartphone, don’t just look at the high refresh rate that it comes with; be sure to look for the touch sampling rate.

Storage Type (UFS vs. eMMC)

Now, let's talk about the storage type, and there are two main types of storage that smartphones use today: eMMC, which stands for embedded multimedia card, and UFS, which stands for universal flash storage.

The effectiveness of these two types of storage options is ot really mentioned alone by the size, whether it’s 128Gb or 256GB, but also by how fast they can read and write data.

For instance, eMMC is mostly found in entry-level smartphones, and it’s mainly because it is not expensive, but it is also really slow because it cannot read and write data simultaneously; it has to do one before it does the other.

When you look at the latest eMMC 5.1, it also has read and write speeds of 400 Mbps per second. It's good for basic stuff, but it would lag once you start gaming.

UFS storage, on the other hand, is really fast as it supports reading and writing at the same time, so it can do both together, and reading and writing speeds can get up to 4,000Mbps.

Next time you buy yourself a new smartphone, don’t just check the storage; always pay attention to the storage type.

USB Port Generation (Not All Type-C is Equal)

Do you think all the USB-C ports in every smartphone are the same? Well, false, it’s not, of course, they are used to charge your phone, but then, they are also used when it comes to data transfer.

There are three main types of USB ports you are going to see in smartphones today, which include USB 2.0, which is common in most budget phones, which focuses more on charging because the data speed is slow, around 480Mb/s.

Then there is the USB 3.0, 3.1, and 3.2, and these are mainly found in midrange and flagship phones because they support faster charging like 45W or more, and much faster data transfers ranging up to 20GB per second.

The third one is USB 4.0, which is less common in smartphones, but it is mostly found in bleeding-edge smartphones and laptops.

The problem is that manufacturers know that most people want to see USB-C on their phones and fast charging, so what they end up quietly doing is that they use USB 2.0 on even expensive phones like the iPhone 17, which is the latest iPhone that still uses USB 2.0 and costs about $800 this simply means you will have slower data transfers. 

Next time you are buying a phone, especially if you want to compare two phones that are on the same price point, make sure to look at details like the USB types.

Wi-Fi Bands (2.4GHz, 5GHz, 6GHz)

Lastly, let’s look at WI-FI bands. Have you ever been in a home with Wi-Fi and internet connection everywhere in the house, sometimes even outside the house, and then you decide to change to a new phone, and then all of a sudden you can’t get WI-FI in your bedroom?

In case you don’t know, this is because there are different types of WI-FI bands available in smartphones today. There is the 2.4GHz, which has the longest range and can penetrate through walls easily, but it is very slow when it comes to the internet connection, and it is found in most budget phones.

On the other hand, there is the 5GHz, which offers faster data speeds, but it has a shorter range with less interference, and it is found in most midrange and flagship phones.

There is the more recent one, which is the 6GHz and 7Ghz bands, which have a short range, but they have the fastest and cleanest signals with very low interference, and they are also found in cutting-edge smartphones like the S26 Ultra.

If you have a phone that relies on 2.4 GHz, the connection will be good but slow, even if you are far away from your internet router.

On the other hand, if you have a flagship that prioritises these better internet connections, then what happens is that the further you move away from the router, the more it switches between different bands for a more stable connection.

Conclusion & Call to Action

So the next time you want to buy a new smartphone, always make sure to check the specs we have discussed above, which can be really helpful for future-proofing.

If this article taught you something that you did not know before, then don’t hesitate to leave a comment below for more articles just like this one.