Gadgetory

what is a power user now this is a term that has been used quite a lot in the smartphone realm but it's one that we weren't really using a couple of years ago leading up to 2017 and the reason why is because a number of features were starting to disappear from our big smartphones like SD card slots and large batteries so in 2017 we noticed a trend that there are very high-performing highly reliable devices coming out on a consistent clip but there's another trend that's been happening in 2017 the niche device now these are smartphones that actually fulfill particular needs and can be classified as power user devices themselves so it's Josh of Recaro what's going on everybody and we're here to talk about five devices that we believe signal the return of the power user what if you just want the absolute best specifications the best possible performance lends itself to the best possible experiences perhaps and that is exactly what razer has attempted to do with the recently announced and soon to be reviewed razer phone the razer phone is certainly one for the spec hungry sporting the snapdragon 835 the completely used 8 gigabytes of ram an SD card slot for more storage dolby atmos speakers that sound incredible and a quad HD screen with ultra motion 120 Hertz refresh rates to make everything fly there's even a DAC inside of the USBC adapter two headphone jack ports because there's no headphone jack on this device but you should be able to get some really high-quality hi-fi audio by using that adapter no one can doubt that this phone is really made for the gamer in all of us but this isn't really a gaming phone because it has all of the specifications you would need to do pretty much anything and that includes productivity it won't take a backseat to the rest as these same specifications will help users get things done in a fast and reliable manner it's easy to look at the razor phone as the power users dream it's a late comer in the 2017 game but it serves as a reminder that we're not through with this year's bevy of incredible smartphones and it comes alongside another entrant that is thinking bigger and in a lot of ways thinking double now we just reviewed the ZTE axon M and even though it may not have gotten the best score here at Android authority we still give it the nod from being a great phone for the multitasker the axon M comes with two screens that fold upon themselves for twice the screen real estate and dual screen capabilities that you literally cannot get on any other device so far the two screens can work separately or in tandem creating an even larger canvas so you can have any of your applications stretched across that entire screen surface for the media lover one screen could be the YouTube display while the other is for getting things done speaking of which you can even view media in a tent mode and you're able to share your media in a mirrored mode with another user adding a complete second screen to a phone is one hell of a move to make and even if its specifications don't necessarily make it a beast unlike the razor phone we certainly give it the nod for being a great multitasking tool the X on M reminded us that it's not necessarily all about power in order to please a power user it's more about fulfilling particular needs and the BlackBerry key one was the early 2017 example of this very notion hardly anyone that would prioritize gaming or media consumption would call the key one their best device but plenty of those same users still look at BlackBerry's keyboard toting smartphone very fondly pointing at all that they can accomplish with it as a daily driver a Productivity user can still be considered a power user as they need to get a lot done with correspondence through email or messaging through a lot of different applications and that all requires one particular everyday task typing and there is arguably no better typing experience than on the physical keyboard of the BlackBerry key one but it's not just about the keyboard blackberry managed to even make the Android experience still as enjoyable as possible on that smaller screen while providing all of the tools that are needed not only for productivity but even for security work is simply no problem for this phone that provides over 26 different shortcuts that you can use to get to places quickly using each and every key on the keyboard and even if it has a mid-range processor and the snapdragon 625 and 3 gigabytes of RAM I was still able to use it personally as a great daily driver in order to just get my stuff done which brings us to the last couple of phones and you probably won't be surprised to see which ones we feature the reason why we're highlighting these two is because they arguably fill both of the power user needs great specs and niche functionality and for the content creator you just cannot go wrong with the LG v3 I've already mentioned the wide-angle camera is one of the most fun ways of using your smart phone for photography and the manual video settings make for the most robust camera control in an Android shooter there's even a log format making the v30 the smartphone for vloggers video shooters instagramers and general photographers alike LG has managed to provide tools for making visual content not only easier to do on a slim powerful device but fun to do because of the wide-angle secondary lens and we haven't even mentioned fully the high-end specifications the streamlined Android experience and the headphone jack that rocks a great sounding quad DAC that is available in all of the V 30 units all of these features are included in a package that doesn't get near the dreaded $1000 price point now $1000 price point is unfortunately what the final pic comes close to Samsung might be the company we originally started using the power user term for because of their Galaxy Note series the note 8 redeems the sins of the note 7 while harkening back to what made the line great putting the best possible pretty much anything into one device that also rocks a stylus the s-pen is basically one-of-a-kind in terms of what it brings to the smartphone experience adding its own features on top of what is already a feature packed version of Android by Samsung and not to even mention the great design of the phone that lends itself to even more features via the edge UX because of that curved infinity display the note 8 also adds a secondary lens to the camera package in this case a zoom lens that lends itself to Samsung's own version of portrait mode and this all just scratches the surface of what Samsung tries to make their phone do some might say that the Galaxy slides dangerously into redundancies due to its many applications that mayor Google's own applications even bigsby sits alongside Google Assistant in the very same device and you can press the dedicated button to get that or hold the home button in order to trigger a Google assistant but putting quite literally everything into one device is the reason why a power user became a thing and despite a couple of previous attempts to regain the love of the power user the note 8 has done so in spades and the best part is that these are only 5 of the devices that we've seen this year there are still a wide spectrum of smartphones that you can choose from with good specifications and reliability to last you throughout even all of next year and with all of that choice in the Android space you can pretty much take your pick and as long as you know what kind of user you are you might be able to find the smartphone that you've been waiting for content creators workaholics media consumers and those simply looking for the best of the best many of their needs met this year making us proud to say welcome back to the power user as always thank you guys very much for watching and we hope you enjoyed this video about the return of the power user keep it tuned to Andrew authority for even more including content from all over the spectrum and you can also head over to andrew authority calm for the latest news features and reviews you can also use the android authority app available in the Play Store so that you can keep up with it using a nice-looking and easy to use application and then when you're done with all of that head on over to Andrew Thornton comm for even more because we are your source for all things Android