How To select The best Smartphone
By Deepanshu Kumar, March 25th, 2014
Planning to buy a new smartphone for yourself? Stuck with
numerous questions inside your head and blinded by more than a thousand
different devices available in the market? Here are a few things which would
certainly help you to understand what exactly would suit your taste.
1. Set your budget.
When you're deciding how much to spend on a Smartphone you have two costs to consider: the price of the phone and the price of the plan. The price of the phone is a one-time expense. Cell phone companies also tend to offer lots of promotions and discounts, so the phone you want may be cheaper than you think. In some cases, if you sign up for a certain plan, the phone is free. Before setting your heart on a certain phone, make sure its price is in-line with your budget.
2. Figure out what matters you the most.
Write down the features that you expect your smartphone to possess. Weather it should have a large screen? Or a good display? A heavy battery back up and a high resolution display? Knowing which of these features are a must for your smartphone to have will decide everything that comes next.
3. Select the Operating System.
There are four main smartphone choices today: Android, BlackBerry, iOS, and Windows Phone. Lets have a brief introduction to all of them.
Android: Developed by Google, this is an open source operating system that runs on the majority of new phones.. Android has a robust apps store called Google Play filled with millions of apps. Visually, it’s similar to iOS, but adds customizeable homescreens and widgets which show things like the weather. The main issue with Android is that because it’s open source, manufacturers like Samsung and HTC often modify its design and functionality, sometimes to the detriment of usability.
BlackBerry: If you’re hooked on BBM or love physical keyboards and small screens, BlackBerry may be for you. Most BB devices have slower hardware and lack some of the core amenities that Android and iOS offer. BlackBerry 10 will supposedly fix most or all of these issues, but we don’t know enough about it yet.
iOS: The iPhone is the only phone that runs iOS and Apple plans to keep it that way. The iPhone kicked off the app revolution and in its fifth year, it is still the standard upon which all other phones are measured. If you own other Apple devices or enjoy services like iTunes, the iPhone may be a good option for you. It doesn’t allow as much geeky tinkering as Android does, but it has a clean, simple design and an app/game catalog that bests all other mobile platforms.
Windows Phone 8 : After the failure of Windows Mobile, Microsoft started from scratch and built Windows Phone, which is based almost entirely on the Zune MP3 player interface. Windows Phone is the only OS to employ a new type of interface. Instead of relying on a grid of shortcuts and a notification tray, Windows Phone uses Live Tiles, which are half app icon, half widget. Everything on your homepage can display moving information or graphics.
4. Features you want in your phone.
Once you walk down to the Smartphone store, the staff there might not get the exact idea of which phone will suit your choice. So it would be better if you understand about what all features different phones offer and match them as per your requirements. Check these out.
1. Beautiful Display.
There are various kinds of displays that different phones offer so you need to make up your mind wheather you’d like to have a SUPER AMOLED display (soothing to the eyes with bright colours, consumes a lot of battery at the same time) or an LCD display would be great( crisp display, consumes less juice). The next thing to keep in mind is what kind of resolution you need on the display. If you’re looking for a 4-inch or a 4.5 inch display then a WVGA(800x480p) would be enough for you. But if your looking for a better screen size then you might want to consider and HD(720p) or FHD(1080p) resolution on your screen.
2. Processor
These days even an entry level phone will provide you with a dual core processor, which is fast enough to do all your daily stuff on you smartphone with great speed. But if you’re planning to run a lot of games and apps on your phone, you might want to go for a Quad-Core processor that makes your phone run like tiny PC. Not to forget the amount of RAM that particular phone offers which lets you run heavy apps on your phone.
3. Camera
Are you a photography freak? Most of the phones provide you with both a front facing and a rear camera( front camera being of a lower pixel count since it is meant to meet your video calling needs). If you wish for a high picture quality then you might want high end phones that offer cameras with higher pixels, which obviously will increase the price bracket of the phone. Apart from the camera quality you must also check for the processor because a better processor would provide a better video quality.
4. Battery Backup
Depending upon your usage, you need to figure out weather you can do with a normal battery which runs out in a day or you need a heavy one that can run your phone through days together.
5. Storage
Another important parameter for selecting you smartphone is the amount of onboard and expandable storage the phone offers.
1. Set your budget.
When you're deciding how much to spend on a Smartphone you have two costs to consider: the price of the phone and the price of the plan. The price of the phone is a one-time expense. Cell phone companies also tend to offer lots of promotions and discounts, so the phone you want may be cheaper than you think. In some cases, if you sign up for a certain plan, the phone is free. Before setting your heart on a certain phone, make sure its price is in-line with your budget.
2. Figure out what matters you the most.
Write down the features that you expect your smartphone to possess. Weather it should have a large screen? Or a good display? A heavy battery back up and a high resolution display? Knowing which of these features are a must for your smartphone to have will decide everything that comes next.
3. Select the Operating System.
There are four main smartphone choices today: Android, BlackBerry, iOS, and Windows Phone. Lets have a brief introduction to all of them.
Android: Developed by Google, this is an open source operating system that runs on the majority of new phones.. Android has a robust apps store called Google Play filled with millions of apps. Visually, it’s similar to iOS, but adds customizeable homescreens and widgets which show things like the weather. The main issue with Android is that because it’s open source, manufacturers like Samsung and HTC often modify its design and functionality, sometimes to the detriment of usability.
BlackBerry: If you’re hooked on BBM or love physical keyboards and small screens, BlackBerry may be for you. Most BB devices have slower hardware and lack some of the core amenities that Android and iOS offer. BlackBerry 10 will supposedly fix most or all of these issues, but we don’t know enough about it yet.
iOS: The iPhone is the only phone that runs iOS and Apple plans to keep it that way. The iPhone kicked off the app revolution and in its fifth year, it is still the standard upon which all other phones are measured. If you own other Apple devices or enjoy services like iTunes, the iPhone may be a good option for you. It doesn’t allow as much geeky tinkering as Android does, but it has a clean, simple design and an app/game catalog that bests all other mobile platforms.
Windows Phone 8 : After the failure of Windows Mobile, Microsoft started from scratch and built Windows Phone, which is based almost entirely on the Zune MP3 player interface. Windows Phone is the only OS to employ a new type of interface. Instead of relying on a grid of shortcuts and a notification tray, Windows Phone uses Live Tiles, which are half app icon, half widget. Everything on your homepage can display moving information or graphics.
4. Features you want in your phone.
Once you walk down to the Smartphone store, the staff there might not get the exact idea of which phone will suit your choice. So it would be better if you understand about what all features different phones offer and match them as per your requirements. Check these out.
1. Beautiful Display.
There are various kinds of displays that different phones offer so you need to make up your mind wheather you’d like to have a SUPER AMOLED display (soothing to the eyes with bright colours, consumes a lot of battery at the same time) or an LCD display would be great( crisp display, consumes less juice). The next thing to keep in mind is what kind of resolution you need on the display. If you’re looking for a 4-inch or a 4.5 inch display then a WVGA(800x480p) would be enough for you. But if your looking for a better screen size then you might want to consider and HD(720p) or FHD(1080p) resolution on your screen.
2. Processor
These days even an entry level phone will provide you with a dual core processor, which is fast enough to do all your daily stuff on you smartphone with great speed. But if you’re planning to run a lot of games and apps on your phone, you might want to go for a Quad-Core processor that makes your phone run like tiny PC. Not to forget the amount of RAM that particular phone offers which lets you run heavy apps on your phone.
3. Camera
Are you a photography freak? Most of the phones provide you with both a front facing and a rear camera( front camera being of a lower pixel count since it is meant to meet your video calling needs). If you wish for a high picture quality then you might want high end phones that offer cameras with higher pixels, which obviously will increase the price bracket of the phone. Apart from the camera quality you must also check for the processor because a better processor would provide a better video quality.
4. Battery Backup
Depending upon your usage, you need to figure out weather you can do with a normal battery which runs out in a day or you need a heavy one that can run your phone through days together.
5. Storage
Another important parameter for selecting you smartphone is the amount of onboard and expandable storage the phone offers.