We asked, you told us: Here's what you want most from phones in 2021

The smartphone industry delivered some great devices in 2020, with 5G, high refresh rates, and multi-camera setups all generally making appearances. It sets a great foundation for 2021, and we’re expecting new phones to be packed to the gills with features as well.

That got us wondering about the features Android Authority readers really wanted to see in 2021’s phones. Do you want more horsepower? What about improved endurance? How does better video quality sound? Here’s how you voted in the poll.

What do you want most from 2021’s phones?

Results

We posted the poll on December 30 2020, and just over two-thirds (35.2%) of readers thought cheaper pricing was the number one feature they wanted to see on new phones in 2021.

It’s rather interesting to see cheaper pricing taking the top spot, but it isn’t unexpected. 2020 saw several phone brands adopt higher prices for their mainline flagship phones, apparently due to flagship silicon price hikes. Notable examples include the Xiaomi Mi 10 series, OnePlus 8 series and OnePlus 8T, and the Sony Xperia 1 II. In fact, we also saw brands like LG and Google ditch flagship chipsets in favor of maintaining or even decreasing prices.

More reading: Did smartphones get a lot more expensive in 2020?

The only other feature to receive more than 25% of the vote was better battery life, with 26.9% of respondents choosing this as their most desired feature in next year’s phones. Many 2020 high-end devices saw big battery capacity gains, but high refresh rate tech and 5G connectivity required more juice.

Otherwise, better photo quality (9.3%), under-display selfie cameras (9%), and the “other” option (6.1%) were the only other features that accrued more than 5% of the vote. In fact, options like more storage and faster charging failed to gain even 2% of votes. This either suggests people are happy with charging speeds and storage capacity today, or they think it’s a foregone conclusion that we’ll get these improvements with 2021 phones anyway.

Your comments

• Tim: Headphone jack and SD card expansion
• Sandeep: Not cheap, but Affordable! No flagship should cost more than 800$
• Drone9: A charger and earphones.
• Andrew Zuo: More headphone jacks!
• iCick e Ciak: I want just one thing: smaller displays. They’re too big
• echo1284: Headphone jack!
• Skifarterking: Flat display, physical fingerprint readers (maybe on the power button) and no camera bumps
• pda96: I’d like to see audio enhancing features. Jack, Dolby ATMOS, dual external speakers, quad DAC, etc. In other words, I’d like to see more phone manufacturers adopting LG’s approach when it comes to audio.
• wcjeep: 4x or 5x optical zoom camera.
• AntiSocialist: Pure Android with no f… bloatware. Especially a Galaxy without all the additional Samsung crap that you cannot uninstall.
• DBS: SMALLER phones.
• Gooseberry: Smaller screen sizes. Not everybody needs a 6 inch or larger screen in their phone.
• HdzBlue: Different designs. Every premium flagship is looking very similar to each other. A glass sandwich, with maybe some shiny effect on the back glass, a la Galaxy S7. What happened to the distinguished designs like the chatoyance of the Nexus 4 back, a denim look on the LG G2, a brushed metal look on the G3, rubber back on the V10? Or for more modern examples, the translucent Mi 10 Ultra, Aurora effect on the HUAWEI P40 Pro. Frosted matte glass is about the closest to distinguishing different glass phones, but a little variety would go a long way.

That’s it for this poll results article. Thanks for voting and for submitting comments! What do you think of the topic and results? Let us know via the comments section.