What kind of device do most consumers use to satisfy their internet access needs? If laptops are what you have in mind, then you might actually be wrong. According to a recent study conducted by Google, the number of people with an internet-capable mobile device has surpassed that of desktop or laptop computer owners.
The study, whose primary goal was to collect data about smartphone and feature phone ownership, was conducted in five major markets, namely the U.S. France, Germany, the U.K., and Japan. It revealed that in the U.S., 78 percent of internet users access the web form their handset whereas 68 percent use a desktop or a laptop computer for that purpose. Some of the respondents admit that they regularly surf the web using both types of devices. Tablets were not part of the study as only a total of 13 percent of the people that participated own one.
That users are starting to lean towards smartphones whenever they need internet access should not come as that much of a surprise. With each passing month, smartphones are getting more and more powerful, and today's cutting-edge models are well capable of doing most of the tasks that one would usually perform on a desktop or a laptop computer – surfing the web, accessing social networks, watching HD video, and much, much more. At the same time, the advancement of wireless networks has brought true broadband speeds to our mobile devices, with the latest LTE smartphones well capable of reaching real life data transfer rates between 10 and 20 megabits per second.