Over the past decade, smartphone technology has undergone massive improvements and changes. At one time, feature phones did not have cameras. Today, there are at least three camera modules in a single phone, all with different functions and zoom. But have you ever thought about what goes on behind the scenes in the storage vault of your smartphone, tablet or digital camera? For most people, this isn't a priority until they run out of storage space.
Fortunately, the performance of this vital component is progressing along with charging techniques, and today, high-end smartphones are already using the Universal Flash Storage (UFS) standard.
So what is UFS and what does its latest version, UFS 3.0, bring? We'll explain why this standard is so important and how it could dramatically increase battery life and improve speed in the future.
UFS is a storage standard designed to deliver super-fast read and write speeds for smartphones and digital cameras, among other mobile devices with less power used in the process. The benefits of UFS can be felt when taking photos, recording videos, or accessing data on your device's internal storage, as you'll experience fairly fast speeds and longer battery life.
In January 2018, JEDEC unveiled the UFS 3.0 standard which increases bandwidth and doubles transfer speeds while reducing the power demand on a system. More than a year later, this new storage standard created quite a buzz with the release of the OnePlus 7 Pro.
UFS 3.0 is like SSD technology for phones and digital cameras, which isn't listed like other specs, but can have a huge impact on your device's performance. It is much faster than UFS 2.1, much faster than other memory standards like eMMC, and will allow hyper-speeds of up to 23.2 Gbps, while reducing power consumption. This means you can even capture 4K or 8K video at higher frame rates, without disturbing your phone too much.
UFS 3.0 offers several advantages, including:
While UFS 3.0 offers fast read and write speeds, what that means for you depends on what you're doing with your smartphone. We all want our apps and games to save and load quickly. Likewise, with the growing popularity of 4K video recording and 8K looming on the horizon, UFS 3.0 is going to come in handy, even though you may not need it right now. P>
So far, very few flagship phones like the Samsung Galaxy Fold, One Plus 7, and OnePlus 7 Pro support it. It will take some time before it spreads to mid-range phones. The hope is that it realizes its full potential as smartphones become more powerful and networks become more reliable and faster.
