What was once the latest hot feature on our smartphones has become the 'without that I'm not buying it' necessity. Ewan takes a look at the features that were once the hot news but have become little more than requirements in the spec list and why this march of progress isn't going to stop in the near future.

While recording this week's All About Symbian podcast, the topic of the firmware in the latest Samsung devices popped up, and Steve argued that until there was an option for an over the air firmware upgrade (or a Nokia Software Update clone), the Samsung would be a challenging choice for a switched-on consumer.

This has got me thinking about the number of features that we now expect from our smartphones. Is it right that we ask for more from each phone? And when these aren't delivered, are we ignoring those phones simply because they're not better than the last phone?

The short answer is yes.

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