Whenever a company launches a new product, it almost always puts a massive emphasis on how much more powerful that product is. For recent smartphones, there are plenty of examples of this. During the launch of the Pixel 9 series, Brian Rakowski said, “We’ve got Pixel 9, the powerfully sophisticated Google phone, with an unbelievable upgraded camera, supercharged performance, and the latest AI features.” During the launch of the Galaxy S24 series, David Thompson said the phones are “designed to deliver exceptional performance and lightning-fast processing speeds.” And Kaiann Drance from Apple said during the launch of the iPhone 16 series, “The iPhone 16’s beautiful design is joined by powerful performance inside.” It’s clear that companies think better performance equals a better product.
This strategy makes sense, of course. Who doesn’t want their shiny new piece of tech to be more powerful than the previous model? However, I feel like this approach needs to be tweaked a bit. While performance gains are always great to have, they don’t necessarily need to be the most critical aspect of a new product. In fact, sometimes, increased performance can make the device less enticing overall because it can come at the expense of other features. I would argue that another detail needs more emphasis: battery life.