Abstract:

The rising of m-learning as a feasible real world trend and its penetration into society depends a lot on the actual hardware and software features of the available devices, namely smartphones on the market. It is hard to imagine m-learning evolving as a trend with the terminals available 8 or 10 years ago, with tiny black and white screens of ridiculous resolutions. Therefore, it is possible to infer that the quality of experience in m-learning, and consequently its adoption by different sectors of users, has a lot to do with the capabilities of devices.

This work pretends to illustrate the results of an empirical analysis of the current offered smartphones in the market and how their features fit the requirements for m-learning. Areas such as connectivity, screen resolution and responsiveness, user interface, operating system, user friendliness, social networking, etc., are examined in search for strengths and weaknesses considering a wide array of the most popular terminals available, ranging from Apple’s iPhone to various BlackBerry and Android-equipped smartphones. This may be useful for choosing the right device for a given m-learning platform, or to identify potential areas for improvement.

Keywords:

Educational Technologies, m-learning, mobile technologies, smarthpone.