waterproofing – taking your mobile for a swim, or not as the case may be

Something like a third of accidents that kill phones are due to water damage.

So is waterproofing worthwhile.

Well the Galaxy S5, the Sony’s they are not waterproof,  only water resistant.  you cannot leave them in the bath for hours, you cannot go diving, or swimming with them strapped to your arm etc.  however if you do drop it in the pool, or spill a beer on it you can shake it down, clean it off, and still have a working phone.

Some require that the port covers are in place (and Samsung I’m looking at you, here) which is not ideal,  because, of course, you’ll not have them all in place when you do drop it, that’s just sods law.

Here is a firm that produces the nano technology that makes your device waterproof (well resistant …) just in case your curious.

So it is worth having,  do get a phone with it,  in particular if you take the phone in the bathroom/shower (as a radio) or leave it on tables during dinner at the pub etc.

However it is not a primary reason to select a phone.

It is interesting though, the feature race for smartphones is starting to come to an end,  we had battery life, CPUs, and screen resolution, 2G,3G,4G, camera pixels etc.  Now these are becoming hygiene for may users.  thus the focus changing away “specs” and more into lifestyle (colour, waterproof, dedicated social media, fitness/wearable add ons.)

This is a good thing it shows that smartphones, are for now in a mature market, with mature solutions.  This drives consumer confidence to buy, reducing the stress of wondering if your new phone is the “next best thing”, and if I wait a few weeks/months will I get more bang for my buck.

Hopefully of course someone will invent something stupendous as an addition (holographic displays, working voice control or some such) and the race will begin again,  but till then …