I tend to agree with this, in general. Honestly, we’ve seen little genuine innovation in smartphone designs in years.  Virtually all models are slabs with a large display and few of small buttons. Yes, there’s some tweaking of that basic design, but that really just means ever-larger screens. All you have to do is look at the the HTC One X and Samsung Galaxy S III to see this. These are latest cutting-edge, flagship models from these companies, and they have the same general form factor. 

Even the classic sideways slider is declining in use. The once almost ubiquitous portrait QWERTY is also all-but dead – even BlackBerry is giving it up. There is a market for devices that offer a physical keyboard, but it’s not a big one.

And don’t look for new ideas to come out of left field. For the most part, consumers aren’t interested in innovative designs. Kyocera Echo was probably the most innovative phone released in the last two years, and it flopped and was widely (and unfairly) mocked. The market has spoken: people want safety and familiarity, not innovation.

Maturity Means Less Experimentation

While it might be easy to see this as a bad trend, really it’s just a sign that smartphones are maturing. Companies have figured out what most consumers want, and are giving it to them.

For an example of how this process works, think about laptop designs — this is something that has been mature for over a decade, which means virtually all devices look the same. They are bigger or smaller, fatter or thinner, but they all have the same basic shape. That’s the direction handsets are headed.

Look at it this way: It’s time for smartphones to put their crazy teenage years behind them, settle down, and get to work.

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Most Android, BlackBerry, and webOS handsets include a microSD memory card reader. If you bought an inexpensive model, or got one a year or so ago, this card probably doesn’t have a very high capacity — maybe 4GB, 2GB, or even less. Some models come with a slot and no card at all.

The card in this slot is where you store your music, video, image, ebook, and document files.  If you increase its capacity, then you can start carrying around a lot more songs, movies, etc. Your smartphone can become much more fun and useful, too. 

Deals, Deals, Deals
The good news is prices for high-capacity microSD cards have dropped… a lot. Big cards are now available at low prices. 

Just a few minutes on one online store turned up two great options: Amazon has a SanDisk 16 GB Class 4 microSDHC card, with a USB card reader, for $9.99. If that deal is gone by the time you read this, the regular price is $14.10.

If you want more, how about a SanDisk 32GB microSDHC card for only $30.41. That’s a lot of storage for not a lot of money.

I’m sure if you do a bit of looking around, you can find some even better deals.

Not for Everyone
Sadly, not every smartphone has a removable memory card slot. Most notably, Apple doesn’t put them in the iPhone. Microsoft hasn’t built support for them into Windows Phone. Even the recent Android “Nexus” models from Samsung lack memory card slots.

Still, users of a large majority of Androids from companies like HTC and Motorola, as well as every BlackBerry I can think of, can get themselves a larger memory card and enjoy the benefits.

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Samsung Captivate — The Captivate offers cutting-edge features like a 1 GHz processor, a Super AMOLED touchscreen, and 16 GB of internal storage. This Android OS device also has a 5 megapixel camera, 3G, Wi, and much more. The asking price is $200.

HTC Aria — With its 3.2-inch, 320 x 480 (HVGA) touchscreen, the HTC Aria is much smaller than the Captivate, but it still has a lot to offer, like a 5 megapixel camera, 3G, Wi-Fi, and much more. AT&T sells it for $130 with contract.

Motorola Backflip — The Backflip has a very unusual design featuring a flip-around keyboard and a touchpanel behind its 3.1-inch, HVGA screen. This consumer-oriented device sells for $50.

Brighthand‘s reviewer Jen Edwards liked the first two models, but didn’t warm up to the Backflip.

In addition, this carrier has announced plans to offer another Android OS model, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, next week.

It has taken a while, but AT&T customers are finally getting a respectable selection of Android OS-based smartphones to choose from.

I say “preliminary” because the unit that was on display at a press-only event I attended was non functional. All I could see was the hardware, and so I can’t say anything about the software.

That’s too bad, because Dell and AT&T intend to put an alternate user interface on top of the standard one created by Google, and at this point I can’t judge how good this UI is going to be.

I just hope that these companies don’t feel a need to muck too much with the standard Android UI, as it doesn’t need much fixing up. But AT&T really likes to meddle with things that don’t need improvement, and this could easily be another device where this happens.

Hardware
I liked what little I was able to tell about the Aero. The design is sleek and lightweight, and it is going to be a very pocketable phone.

I’d like to be able to tell you more about the hardware, but I again ran into wall trying to get a full list of specifications. At this point, AT&T and Dell are playing their cards very close to their chests. 

Really all I can do is point out that the Aero is going to be part of the Dell Mini 3 series, and other models in this series have a 3.5-inch, 360-by-640 touchscreen, 3.2 megapixel camera, GPS, and a microSD memory card slot. In addition to Wi-Fi and 3G, they also have Bluetooth.

AT&T is promising to fill in all the details “soon”, so please stand by.