As for the color – it has to do something with the clothes we wear, in general. It’s true that black suits everything, and most men don’t like flashy colors like orange, purple, or luminous green. It’s all a massive generalization, but it seems that men prefer black, grey, dark blue for their clothing and respectively, for their phones. For me, personally, the perfect phone would have a titanium unibody left unpainted, maybe brushed or anodized. Designwise, the Xperia Z line comes to mind and the Razer phone, too. Something sturdy and industrial looking.

Women’s perspective

Women definitely like things to be practical yet stylish. For a woman, the smartphone is not only a phone, it’s an important accessory. It also can be a symbol of prestige and style. The perfect phone for a woman is something trendy and elegant, and at the same time neither too big, nor too small. It’s a very well known fact that a woman’s handbag is a home of a lot of wonderful things, so the smartphone should be big enough to be easily findable among all the stuff. Yet, the phone shouldn’t be too big or too heavy so that it’s comfortable for a woman to take photos with it and browse social media.

As for the color ‒ generally, women lean towards more feminine colors such as light pink or gold, but pastel colors are also great for us. The perfect smartphone for a woman would be in neutral colors, but with a hint of thought behind it: a dull grey smartphone does not make a great accessory. But a light grey smartphone with a gentle light blue reflection is another story.

The finish should preferably be glossy and sleek. Generally, the smartphone should complement a woman’s look and the clothes she picks, at all times. 

The perfect phone – Display

Women’s perspective

Well, given the fact that we spend a lot of time on social media and watching YouTube, we need a pretty good display. However, none of the women I interviewed mentioned anything about OLED or LCD. The display of the perfect smartphone for a woman should, of course, look good, but most of us don’t devote too much attention to whether the black is completely black or whatnot. A big screen is a plus, and a fragile screen (such as the Galaxy Z Flip’s) can be a problem for ladies with long nails. As I mentioned before, we want our smartphones to not be too enormous but definitely not small either, so for all the women I interviewed, the perfect display size is around 5.8 inches.

Men’s perspective

Well, it has to be OLED, right? If your phone is black, you want it to stay black consistently. I think resolution and frame rates matter the most when it comes to displays, and popping colors, rounded edges (hate those), or notches and punch-holes are not a priority for men. 21:9 aspect ratio will be nice, as it keeps things rather compact. I’m tempted to say “give me like 300Hz refresh rate”, but let’s be realistic here. You probably won’t see the difference and your smartphone’s battery will thank you if you choose 120Hz tops. All in all, men are really focused on specs, at least when we’re looking for a new phone and making a buying decision.

The perfect phone – Camera/s

Men perspective’s

Phones are all about cameras nowadays, and their backs house enough holes to keep people with Trypophobia away. Apart from all the photography fans out there though, men tend to take fewer pictures with their phones. I really don’t need 5 cameras on the back on my phone. I take pictures when I need to remember something, not to win a Pulitzer in photography. Let’s take Instagram, the biggest photo-oriented social media.

According to the marketing research company NapoleonCat, 56.5 percent of Instagram users in the US are female, while 43.5 are male. So give me just one camera, but a good one, a big sensor, а lot of optical zoom and that’s it. If you ask me, I don’t even need a selfie camera, but I can’t see any of the big manufacturers ever getting rid of that. 

Women’s perspective

Women definitely need a great camera or cameras, but the attention is mainly focused on the selfie shooter. Guys, you’re missing out when you say you don’t need it at all!

The perfect smartphone’s selfie camera has to be at least up to par with its rear camera and definitely not lower quality or with fewer features. For a woman, the selfie camera is not only a camera, it can also be a mirror and a window to social media. I have interviewed several women and they have all agreed that the selfie camera should offer great quality for the times when there is no one around to take a photo of you but your outfit or the place that you are at should be eternalized.

The perfect phone – Sound

Men’s perspective

I was hoping to see a 3.5 mm audio jack revival, but apparently, wireless headphones and earphones are good enough for all of the male participants in my inquiry. So, let’s cut out the nostalgia and focus on speakerphones. Yes, most of the high-end phones nowadays feature a stereo setup, but in reality, they just use the earpiece as a second loudspeaker. I need it done right! Put a couple of equally good speakers and make them front-facing. 

Women’s perspective

Here, the ladies I spoke to were not unanimous, for a change. Some of us need a very strong speaker as we use our phones as music players as well. Others do not like their smartphones to be as loud as a portable speaker. But we all agree the sound has to be crystal clear and good for listening to music and watching YouTube.

The perfect phone – Performance

Women’s perspective

Most of the women that I spoke to do not pay too much attention to things like CPU, GPU or chip speeds. However, we do like the phone to be quick and responsive, also good with multitasking, so the perfect phone will definitely need some power under the hood to do all that. 

An important aspect of a smartphone for most women is storage. We tend to take a lot of photos, either of ourselves (a photo session of a pretty outfit can be something between 20-50 photos or for some, even more) or of beautiful sceneries, cute cats and dogs and great places where we feel joy. So, we need these gigabytes of storage. For a perfect phone, less than 100GB of storage will not be good enough.

Men’s perspective

Men like to tinker with things, understand them, delve deep into them. All of my friends can name the chipset in their phones, the amount of RAM, the storage, even the display technology. We tend to be geekier. Do we need the perfect smartphone to run Windows or Linux on an x86 processor? Probably not. (Waiting for the comments saying it’s been done already). Strangely enough, I think that modern mobile chipsets are powerful enough for all practical purposes. 8GB of RAM is plenty, more is just overkill. 1TB of storage will satisfy everyone, and maybe these AMD RDNA graphic chips we’ve been promised for mobile are coming our way, too?

The perfect phone – Battery life

Men’s perspective

I thought this one was going to be pretty straightforward, but apparently, I was wrong. All my male friends I’ve asked seem to not care much about battery life. All they need is a full day and they don’t mind charging every night. I was going to write how battery life is one of the key things in a smartphone, but hey, it’s a democracy. So, the perfect phone must last through a full day of heavy use. I think we’re already there.

Women’s perspective

A perfect smartphone for a woman has to have enough juice to last a day of selfies, photos and browsing. The women I spoke to, at least, do not pay too much attention to gaming, but they all agreed the smartphone should be capable of lasting a great vacation day with loads of Venice photo taking… and in the evening, to have at least some 30% battery left for a fun night out with the girls. I guess we agree with the men, but we’re a bit more demanding.

Men’s perfect phone

• Sturdy and industrial looking. Tough materials like titanium or carbon-fiber highly appreciated. Monochrome colors preferred
• One good main camera will suffice. The more, the better, but it’s not a priority. 
• Real stereo speakers, please! We’re inclined to sacrifice the 3.5 mm audio jack in return
• Weight is not an issue, right? That’s what we’ve been telling our gym instructor anyways

Women’s perfect phone

• Not too big, not too small
• Amazing cameras and most importantly, selfie camera as advanced as rear camera
• Give us the storage
• Good performance and enough RAM to quickly switch between apps
• Gorgeous design, neutral, but interesting colors

The perfect phone – if we had to choose now…

Men’s perspective

Okay guys, go to the pawn shop and get an Xperia Z5 Premium. I’m joking, although If the year was 2015 I would’ve picked the Z5 Premium without any hesitation. You know where this is going, right? I’m all in for the Xperia revival and objectively speaking, the new Xperia 1 II ticks most of the boxes. It’s not made of titanium and there are more cameras on the back, but all in all it’s a men’s phone.

Women’s perspective

iPhone 11, we choose you! The iPhone 11 is not an enormous phone at 6.1 inches, but it’s big enough to not lose it among the other magic stuff in our handbags. It definitely looks gorgeous and has some trendy colors to pick from. The camera is great, the performance is awesome and the price tag is also… awesome. But hey, I said we need it to be prestigious!