TechBytes | 2016’s 5 Best Tech Trends!

Oh yes. We’re at the end of the year where I have an excuse to do a lot of Top 5 lists! In the next few days, I will be posting Top 5 lists on the year that was 2016! Since I didn’t get to do posts related to the Holidays, I figured to do these instead. Now, here’s my list of 2016’s 5 Best Tech Trends!

Great Smartphone Cameras!

This year has seen a slew of smartphones whose manufactures gave more and more time to the camera. I’m so happy to find out that more and more smartphones have the ability to shoot great photos! You no longer need to spend a lot of money just to a phone with a good camera!

I could give a lot of examples: Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, Huawei P9, iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, Google Pixel and Pixel XL, Sony Xperia X. The list can go on but I would take up too much of your time.

Speaking of great smartphone cameras…

Good Smartphones Get Cheaper, Cheap Smartphones Get Better.

This trend has been happening for a while. As more and more good parts are getting cheaper, the smartphones themselves get cheaper.

This means that we get better smartphones for a lower price! Some of those smartphones even have good cameras for the price.

OnePlus prides itself for doing just that and continues with that trajectory with the OnePlus 3T! It may just cost around $429 but it has the latest Snapdragon 821 chip and 6GB of RAM! You also get a relatively stock version of Android and 64GB of internal storage. It sounds insane if you think about it.

More and More Gadgets!

You would think that gadgets would just die off by now. A lot of things are being replaced by an app on your smartphone. Here’s the good news: there are actually MORE GADGETS to have now!

Thanks to the Internet of Things and smartphones, more gadgets are popping up to either to supplement what the phone has or do something that the smartphone just can’t.

One example is the SMART HOME where various appliances, lighting, and other home items can talk to one another and be controlled by the smartphone.

Drones wouldn’t be a thing if it weren’t for smartphones. I can’t imagine that the parts used for these cool flying gadgets that record video would exist or be cheap enough if it weren’t for smartphones.

There will be more and more gadgets and I expect A LOT of them in CES 2017.

Google’s and Snap’s Focus on Hardware.

It surprised me when Google and Snap Inc. (formerly Snapchat) made hardware this year!

Google finally dived in the big smartphone pool with the Pixel and Pixel XL. Fortunately for them, both phones are hits! Its claim that the Pixel is the best smartphone camera ever has been proven over and over again. (I have yet to try one so we’ll see about that.)

Snap Inc. made waves in the news when they announced Spectacles! They’re a pair of glasses with a camera that records 10-second videos and uploads them to Snapchat. Despite the potential creepiness factor, a lot of people wanted a pair! What made this hard yet oddly interesting was the concept of putting up yellow vending machines that only lasts for a limited time. Creating artificial scarcity is what made this hardware experiment for Snap all the more amazing!

USB-C is the Next Standard!

I wrote this last on the list mainly due to the standard causing trouble for other people. (Thanks Apple.)

Don’t get me wrong though, USB-C being the next standard to have is great! With the new port, we can transfer files faster AND power any device with the same port! Laptops with USB-C can be charged with powerbanks without worries! (given that you have a USB-C to usual USB or USB-A cable)

The most important thing about USB-C is that you can put the cable in ANY WAY you want. There’s NO MORE wrong side anymore! Just put the cable into the port and it works!

And that was my list of 2016’s 5 best tech trends! Did I miss anything? Leave your comments down below! Thanks for reading!