Androidworld looks back at the 6 expectations of phones in 2022

Sometimes it’s nice to be able to pat yourself on the back and say, “I told you so.” Every now and then we just need this at the editorial office. Fortunately, there is now a time when we can do this. It turns out that we have a great talent for looking into a crystal ball. In this article, we therefore look back at the expectations we had for telephones in 2022. Which ones have come true and which have not?

Expectations of phones in 2022

At the end of last year we wrote an article with our expectations of phones in 2022. We then answered the following question: “What news do we expect to see in the smartphone world in 2022 and what would we like to see come (back)? ?” We came up with these six points:

1. Update policy and sustainability as a selling point
2. Development of foldables
3. (Even) faster charging
4. More compact top smartphones
5. Fewer cameras
6. Tablets are becoming popular again.

In many of the above themes, our prediction turned out not to be far from the truth, but not everything has come true either. Below we discuss per point where we were right and where we missed the mark a bit.

1. Update policy and sustainability as a selling point

Using the update policy and sustainability as a selling point has certainly happened and we see that several smartphone manufacturers have done this in 2022. Think of brands such as Nokia, Nothing and Samsung. The latter, for example, made it quite a point that the Galaxy S22 series would largely be made from recycled fishing nets. However, this turned out not to be entirely the case, you can read more about this in this article. Nothing further emphasized that they use recycled aluminum and Nokia plants a tree with every Nokia X30 5G sold.

It is also a fact that the competition mainly takes place in the ‘update policy arena’. Samsung has improved the update policy of almost all phones. Many Galaxy smartphones will receive four Android upgrades and five years of security updates since this year. But not only Samsung improved its update policy, brands such as OnePlus, OPPO and Motorola will also support their smartphones for longer.

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2. Development of foldables

In 2022, we would have honestly hoped for more development in the foldable smartphone field. We had hoped, among other things, that several smartphone manufacturers would bring foldables to the market, that there would be more types of foldable smartphones or that existing models and techniques would improve.

However, none of these three actually materialized. In 2022, we saw that Samsung and Motorola, among others, released new foldable devices, but they were rather minor upgrades compared to their predecessors.

OPPO came at the last minute with two new models that will be launched in Europe this time. However, the most appealing model, the Find N2, is not coming our way for the time being. And this is a shame, as we think this smartphone has the perfect proportions. Better than the Fold 4’s overstretched display with its 25:9 aspect ratio.

In addition, we did not see roll-up smartphones or extendable phones storm the market. It stayed with a concept here and there. Perhaps we can expect them in 2023?

3. Charge (even) faster

We see mainly Chinese manufacturers that they want to ensure that smartphones can charge as quickly as possible. They like to show off ‘the fastest charger in the world’. A title that was long in the hands of Realme in 2022.

However, the difference in fast charging is getting smaller and smaller. The difference between a 25W charger and a 65W charger is still large, more than an hour. However, the difference between 65W and 150W is only about ten minutes. With this, the innovation battle for the fastest charging technology seems to have mainly become a marketing ploy. However, we expect to see even more of it in 2023. There is already talk of charging with a capacity of 200W and more. You can call it the new megapixels.

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4. More compact top smartphones

Sebastien and the undersigned are the two ‘compact smartphone enthusiasts’ in the editorial office. The fact that you can operate your smartphone with one hand makes us very happy. Our silent wish was therefore that 2022 will bring more compact smartphones and this wish has largely come true.

Xiaomi, among others, launched a compact high-end smartphone with the Xiaomi 12X. In addition, the Galaxy S22 series has become more compact, because the S22 basic model with its 6.1-inch screen is good to operate with one hand. Google and ASUS also launched a compact smartphone in the form of the Google Pixel 6a and the ASUS Zenfone 9.

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5. Fewer cameras

We thought that the days of five or more cameras on the back of smartphones will be behind us in 2022. However, we still see a lot of smartphones with five cameras, of which only two or three are really useful in most cases. Especially with budget smartphones, these other sensors are often a 2 megapixel macro camera, a 2 megapixel monochrome sensor or a depth sensor.

In 2023, however, it seems that these sensors will disappear more often. According to the rumors, Samsung will remove the rather useless depth sensors from the Galaxy A14, Galaxy A34 and the Galaxy A54, among others.

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6. Tablets are getting popular again

Our expectation that tablets would become popular again in 2022 has not come true. Even Nokia, which indicated that it wanted to bring several models to the market, only came up with one new tablet. We also saw some tablets from Lenovo and Samsung, among others. However, the big ‘tablet wave’ did not materialize, as you can see in these figures.

On to 2023

Also for 2023 we will soon take up our shining ball again. Our expectations for the phone world in 2023 will be online later this week. So keep a close eye on our website and the AW Reader.