The modular smartphone is dead – Long live the bit-modular smartphone
You could say that regular smartphones have become less and less modular. Where it was still normal until about five years ago that you could easily change the battery and expand the storage with a memory card, that has long since ceased to be common practice. Especially the removable battery has lost out against the trend of unibody smartphones.
There have been initiatives to make mobile phones, much like PCs, completely modular. The Israeli Modu made a valiant effort , but failed. The company went into too much debt and was unsuccessful. Google bought Modu’s patents in 2011 and looking back, that was not surprising. It was Google that kept the dream of a modular smartphone alive for years. It started with Motorola, the mobile phone maker that started Project Ara in 2011 to make a smartphone fully modular.
It is now 2016 and the modular smartphone as an idea is actually dead. The idea that you can find components together just like with a PC and build your own smartphone with it and keep it up to date, no longer exists. Or rather: it has taken on a new form, namely that of the partly modular smartphone, which can still achieve great successes.
Ara: Not so modular after all
The great promise of Project Ara was complete modularity. Changing the battery or expanding the storage with a memory card is nothing special, but with Ara it had to be possible to upgrade the processor and put in a different display without much effort. Until Google gave an update at its I/O developer conference last month. Ara will still be released, but the modular functionality comes in a much slimmed-down form. The frame now contains fixed elements that cannot be changed by users. These are the CPU, the GPU, the screen, the battery, the antennas and the sensors.
This does not make Ara a fully modular phone, but only an expandable phone. Let’s call it a semi-modular phone. You can’t replace everything, but you can expand the functionality, with Google freeing up a total of six slots on the back for the modules.
Google cites the reason that it would not pay to make the phone completely modular. People wouldn’t be interested in replacing the processor or screen. That seems to us an unlikely explanation. If you look around and see how many phones have a cracked screen, you can only suspect that people would like to replace it without having to buy a new phone.
The modules that can be added by the user have yet to be created, but Google mentions audio modules for adding, for example, extra 3.5mm jacks or an extra sturdy dac, a module with an e-ink screen for displaying info or specialized modules for certain applications, such as sensors for meteorological measurements or medical diagnoses.
Ara will be available as a developer device this fall and, if not delayed again, will be in stores for consumers next year. Prices and availability are not yet known, but are crucial. How much do you pay for modules and is it worth it?
The bit-modular smartphone
In the meantime, various manufacturers have come up with the idea of a not fully modular smartphone that does allow expansion. The counter is now at three well-known manufacturers, but there could be more in the near future.
The Fairphone launched its second device last year, the Fairphone 2 . Replacing the screen, the micro USB port and other elements is a piece of cake and anyone can do it within a few minutes. Upgrading the processor is not possible, but those who want to buy a better camera should be able to do so in the future.
However, there are compromises in the design of the phone. It is relatively thick, obviously cannot have a unibody housing and is also relatively expensive, partly due to its durable nature. The latter certainly applies given the already fairly outdated soc in the device, which will therefore not be possible to upgrade.
The least implementation is perhaps that of LG with the G5. Users of that device can pry off the bottom and replace it with a module that adds a function. There are currently two modules available and there is a chance that it will stay there , because to develop your own module, two elves must sing at the same time at the stroke of midnight and the full moon. That’s crazy, of course, but you have to be a South Korean student, sign a contract with LG and develop the module together with technicians from the manufacturer.
That is not the only downside, because the build quality also suffers from the expansion function. For example, cracks are visible and modules do not connect as well as the original bottom.
Lenovo has a different solution. On the back of the Moto Z is a connector with sixteen pins for clip-on accessories. These accessories are also available in the necessary variants. There is one with a pico projector, one with speakers from JBL and various ways to add battery capacity.
Conclusion
You can say that Google has thrown in the towel and thus abandoned the idea of a fully modular smartphone. The Ara will still be the most modular smartphone yet, but the idea of it being the last smartphone you’ll ever buy is a thing of the past.
Nevertheless, the idea of the expandable smartphone seems to be catching on. After the Fairphone 2 last year, with the LG G5 and Lenovo Moto Z, we already see two smartphones from major brands that are running off with this idea. The benefits are obvious; it is a way to differentiate a smartphone from the competition and generate additional revenue from the sale of modules. In a market for high-end smartphones that grinds to a halt, the ability to differentiate and generate additional sales will be music to many manufacturers.
So we wouldn’t be surprised if other smartphone makers also embrace this idea and that we see an expandable Galaxy S8 or HTC 11. In a market in which smartphones are becoming more and more similar, we can still personalize smartphones. This can be done with modules that add just that function that does not enjoy enough interest to be put on the basic model.