What the hell is a “Pro” smartphone?

Naming a smartphone should be so simple, so why do so many companies cock it up?

From Apple’s protein powder-esque branding of iPhone 11 Pro Max to the mouthful of Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G, it’s all a bit of a mess really. It all started logically with “Plus,” logically meaning a bigger screen back from the days of the iPhone 6.

But now, we’ve got some strange naming conventions - the trend starting for most with the iPhone 11 Pro. Simply put, Apple wanted people to view their budget iPhone as more than just the cheap option, so rather than naming it the 11R and continuing on from the XR, they just bumped that up to the 11.

Smart, small change to their branding bumped their lower level device up to the same premium level and showing Apple as the good guys for offering a fully-fledged iPhone for less.

But there was one issue with this naming, and that came when they put the word “Pro” at the end of their higher-end phones.

And that issue? “Pro” or “Ultra” doesn’t mean anything when it comes to phones. 

The iPhone 11 Pro Max - hated by Trypophobiacs everywhere. Source: Stuff

Think about the things a pro wants with a computer - sky high specs, customisability of parts to keep up with the bleeding edge of performance, and the vast range of pro software to help you create.

Does any of what we have fulfil this brief? Honestly, I’d say we’re about halfway there (woah-oh, living on a prayer). 

The hardware is powerful, able to process video up to 8K on the Ultra and crunch all kinds of tasks with ease. But by the definition of keeping a phone extra portable, every piece of the hardware is crippled in some way - from those high-megapixel cameras stuffed into tiny lenses that don’t let in much light, to the processor speed in order to not run too hot. 

Like you see in laptops, just because you have the best specs in there, doesn’t mean they can run at their best. However, at least portable computers have the pro software.

As for phones, you’ve got...let’s call it “baby pro” software. Don’t get me wrong, you can just about do all the stuff that a pro user would be looking for - the standard office stuff like emails and social management (duh), and you can technically edit high res photos and videos. But the tools are incredibly limited in all cases to either adding colour-based filters to pictures, or trimming clips into smaller segments and adding them to glorified slideshows in the likes of iMovie.

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra - yep, they actually called the 100x zoom “Space Zoom.”

Is this something that could be fixed on a screen this small? Hell no! I will never get the specificity of editing with a mouse interface in Photoshop. Neither will I get a pixel-to-pixel clip cut that transitions in time with background music like I can with Final Cut Pro (yes I don’t use Premiere Pro. Sue me). 

But the point I’m making here is that sticking the word “pro” in your phone name is a false flag (I say that, while staring at my OnePlus 7T Pro. It means nothing right now. The industry doesn’t really know what a prosumer phone looks like at the moment. Beyond just having some beasty specs, the software has to be there as well, which it just isn’t. And we need some real definition of what this category is.

Does Pro mean modular components? Root customisation of every element of your phone’s performance? Actual prosumer software? Maybe all of the above - because it shouldn’t just mean a slightly bigger screen, a third camera and a bigger battery to fuel that faster processor.

And neither does it mean a 100x zoom on your phone. That’s a feature built only for creeps so stop it, Samsung.

...Maybe I’m thinking too much into this (of course I am), but at the moment, the “Pro” is just for show.