2014 in Review. 2015 Predictions.

27th December 2014

If you want to predict what a high-end smartphone will look like in 2015, take a high-end smartphone from 2014 and everything faster, bigger or give it a higher resolution. Manufacturers will continued to add NFC despite there not being a real use, but wireless charging may well go into a decline after failing to break through into the mainstream market.

Smartwatches will remain a niche and slow-selling product, but when the Apple Watch comes up there will be a brief resurgence of interest, but 2015 will not be the year of wearables.

The big shock this year was the disappearance of Nokia. Well... sort of. If Microsoft can continue the innovation and quality that Nokia were showing then it should continued to consolidate its position, however the Microsoft brand is deeply unsexy and work needs to be done on this.

Of course, Nokia still exists and came out with the N1 tablet shortly after Microsoft phased out its name. If Nokia do want to get back into the business it won't be until 2016. In the meantime, the most Nokia-esque device you can pick is the upcoming Jolla Tablet, made by ex-Nokia engineers on an ex-Nokia operating system.

BlackBerry has survived against all the odds in 2014, although it it a much smaller company than it was. Losses are beginning to come under control, and BlackBerry are beginning to reconnect with their fans. Perhaps there is a chance that BlackBerry will be something of a disrupter in 2015.

Small manufacturers such as OnePlus, FairPhone, BlackPhone, Jolla and  YotaPhone will challenge preconceptions, although the attrition right is likely to be high. However, the innovation needed to challenge the big players will probably come from firms such as these.

Apple, Samsung, LG, Sony and HTC will follow in the footsteps they made in 2014, except that Samsung needs to try the hardest to stand out with its upcoming products. HTC is the most radical of the Android players, so the HTC One M9 will be awaited with interest. Apple will warm over it's iPhone 6 range, possibly changing the chassis design.

Perhaps a growth area in 2015 will be phones of the past. Smartphones are basically just a screen and an enclosure these days, and there seems to be a stirring of interest in the more radical designs of vintage phones. Perhaps your next phone will be something more retro?