Features I don’t Use in My Smartphone


I bought my current smartphone Sony Xperia P on 1st December 2012 (Thanks Facebook Timeline!). Since then I have made a good use of it. It helps me to read mail, check-in to places, take photos, send and receive text messages, make calls and everything that a smartphone would do. However, I have noticed that I have never used some features packed with it. I am going to try and list them, so I can know what exactly I need from a smartphone, and that’d give me an idea of what should I look for in a future smartphone I might purchase.

Internal Storage

Sony Xperia P comes with a little more than 11GB of internal storage available for users. From that, I have only used about 2GB of that! This is because I don’t use my phone as a “file storage facility”. I don’t listen to music on phone regularly, so I don’t have to store music in it like most people do. I think an smartphone with about 8GB of internal storage would be more than enough for me.

Features I don't Use in My Smartphone - Internal Storage

WiFi Hot Spot

My phone can act as a WiFi Hot Spot if necessary. I have used it one or two times, but I decided not to use that ever again. Ever. Turning the WiFi Hot Spot drains the battery so fast and heats the phone too much. I could even fry an egg on the phone while the WiFi hot spot is on.

NFC

After testing the feature with Praboda’s Xperia V, I haven’t use NFC in my Xperia P. I know it’s cool when you can tap another device with your phone and send files, but the need never arose. And NFC enabled payment systems are at least a decade in the future for us Sri Lankans.

Ring and Notification Tones

This might not be a big deal, and may be just me. I use a plain ring and notification tones, and I never change them. So the dozens of different tone options go unused.

Pre Installed Apps

Here are a list of apps Sony had installed on my phone and I then uninstalled (Actually I froze them using “Titanium Backup”).

  • All the themes except the one I am using. I’d never change it.
  • Back Up and Restore. I don’t store any file in my phone. My emails are already backed up in GMail, and I save my text messages to PC once a month or so.
  • Stock Browser. I use Chrome and Dolphin.
  • Stock Email Client. I use GMail app, Outlook app, and SolMail for other email accounts.
  • Text Messenger. I used this for a long time. But as Google Hangouts now support text messaging, I said goodbye to the stock text messaging app.
  • SenseMe. I guess it is Sony’s alternative to Shazam. I use Shazam.usage-of-features-and-functions-in-a-software-system
  • Sony Select. Sony’s “recommended” apps can be found in this. Duh. Why waste time Sony? I know what I want, and Google Play’s own recommendations are better.
  • Timescape. Updates from social networks are displayed “beautifully” in this app. Why?
  • Voice Dialer. It can’t recognize Sinhala names, which almost all of my contacts have.

Features I don't Use in My Smartphone - Pre Installed Apps

Do you use all the features of your phone? What are the ones you don’t use?

PS:

The featured image was taken from http://www.softwareresults.us/2011/07/where-do-unused-features-come-from.html. It shows most of the features in a software system goes unused. I think it’s the same for phones.

usage-of-features-and-functions-in-a-software-system


22 responses to “Features I don’t Use in My Smartphone”

  1. I own a Nokia 920 and although I am a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to technology I must admit that I found my way around the phone and it’s features very easily but in saying that I was determined to use it to it’s fullest potential. Smart Phones have changed the way we communicate and if you have not spent the time to learn your phone you really are missing out. Thanks very much for the blog.

  2. I don’t use many of the features on my Samsung Note2. Neither do I use more than 1% of the features in Word or Excel or indeed more than 0.1% of the features in Microsoft office or Outlook. Life is too busy to learn a pile of stuff that won’t be useful (to me).

    Enough is as good as a feast – as my grandmother used to say.

    My note2 has my contacts and my diary and I get e-mail and browse – that’s it about it for me..and of course … the big size screen and long battery life were very important !

  3. My attitude toward the apps on my phone is similar to my attitude toward the books in my library/ebooks on my kindle. I may not use it every day and I might only use it once a year, but when I need it, it is there and that makes it worth it for me.

  4. I usually don’t have so many apps in my Iphone, only the ones that I need to use each day. Those that are not relevant are being removed after I test it in a day or two…

  5. I have an iPhone 5 and nothing you listed is new. I don’t use a device to accept credit card payments, but I don’t accept credit card payments :).
    Good start.

  6. It seems we are being sold on what has more. Let’s face it. If we bought what we would use I guess we would all have razor flip phones

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