Your life in your hands Many of us own a smartphone and use it everyday for making calls and sending messages. But as the name suggests, smartphones can do much more than these simple tasks. As technology has advanced, more sensors have been built into our phones. New apps have been designed to make use of these sensors in innovative ways. Knowing how to manage and manipulate this technology can open up new opportunities to live smartly.

SMARTPHONE CAMERAS ARE great, or at least close enough to great that you don’t notice the difference. We’ve reached the point where you’ve got to work pretty hard to find a phone with a mediocre camera, and when you do, it is an anachronism to be mocked and derided—and passed over for a phone with a better one. It wasn’t always this way, of course. There was a time, not too long ago, when smartphone cameras sucked. They took genuinely bad photos that were underexposed or overexposed or grainy or … well, you remember. And if you don’t, consider yourself lucky. It’s taken a few years, but nowadays people take a great camera for granted. Thank companies like Nokia, which started pushing that envelope in 2007, and Apple, which gave the iPhone 4 the first camera that made people go, “Daaaaaaaamn.” See more: http://www.wired.com/2015/12/smartphone-camera-sensors/

Smartphones can do extraordinary things beyond the home. Which of these four tasks have they successfully achieved?

Looking for a cheap smartphone? Here are three of the best on the market right now Having a top notch phone doesn't have to cost a small fortune. Don't believe us? Then check these latest handset deals out See more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/features/looking-cheap-smartphone-here-three-7052644

More than nine years of data on UK smartphones means we can forecast how many people might stick with 'featurephones' - like the popular Nokia 6310 - and when the smartphone boom will be over See more: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/30/featurephone-smartphone-uk-