There surely is some mumbo-jumbo working in favour of the word ‘more’. The buyer of goods needs more discount, the reader of a newspaper needs more pages, the viewer of television needs more masala, the politician needs more scope to be safe… and so I’m not surprised to hear people in a store selling smartphones, ask: ‘What more can this one do?’
As if more is really what these people want to do. I know most of them are anyway going to make some passive calls, send a few SMSes, fiddle nervously with Whatsapp, and grin uncontrollably as they reach for Facebook. But if they want more, they need more. The simple logic is that more cannot be had for less. But more can certainly be had for the best possible price. This is true for any service and commodity… including smartphones or mobile phones.
There is a thin line separating the haves and the have-nots, a work of art and pornography, and also between pretending-to-be-more and really-more. You think this is funny? If you do, then you possibly haven’t heard of padded bras… but then I do not mean to bring them up in this post. All I want to say is that even smartphones can pretend-to-be-more than being really-more. Let’s compare the sub-10K smartphones with those in a price band that is more than 10K. Like us humans, even smartphones come with a body, heart, and soul.
The body
If given a choice none of us would want to have a puny body that impresses no one and gets easily buffeted by a wind velocity that wouldn’t move a loose sheet of paper! Why then will an intelligent buyer go for a smartphone with a body that creaks or threatens to spill over in just a few hours of use? A sturdy body is what we all want. Obviously, a sturdy body is half the story said… there is an innate need to go for bodies that are attractive. Colours on cover are just as vital. The screen shouldn’t have a tendency to shatter at the slightest shove. This comes when you are willing to move up from the economy end of the price band and go for some device that is in the 10K plus range.
The heart
The heart, as we all know, is all about responsiveness. When you go for a movie that is well made, you know the director and the actors have been responsive to the needs of society. When you are served a delicacy at a fine dine restaurant, you know the dish and your palate will converge into each other. Just like these examples, even the smartphone screen in its tie-up with the processor needs to act intuitively and dance in tune to the movements of your fingers. Again, I must say that this dance doesn’t generally happen in smartphones in the sub-10K price band.
The soul
Listen, a smartphone isn’t just a device that lets you make voice calls. It has the ability to be your partner when you want to click a moment or when you want to jot down a thought or even when you want to enter a world of melody and relax. These are features that give it the soul that I am talking about. I mean, why spend a little less and get a phone with a camera that gives you shots with a lot of noise or where the melody wafts in hand-in-hand with cackles and crackles or where jotting thoughts or sending messages is a painful exercise? As a concerned buyer you may want to opt for a device that isn’t just a device for voice calling. You need more.
The sorcery of more
So now we know that more is more or less about an experience that is richer and not just demands more money. The magic of more is that when you give more you tend to get more. I know there is no upper limit for more, but then you really must be sure of what is truly less.
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The Sorcery of More
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Arvind Passey
20 March 2015
