Buying Guide : Smart Phones....

Once you have decided to get rid off your old cell phone it’s not easy decide to buy which one, when you step in to store or just search the web, you will be bombarded with features some are easy to understand, usable whereas some are marketing gimmicks, so today we will understand what all features are to be looked upon when you a buy a smart phone.

Platform (iOS/ Android / Windows):- 

Gone are the days when you had choice of only Symbian OS which was primarily used by all Nokia phones, today user has many choice, whether to go for Apple’s iOS, or Android or Windows.

It’s important to understand which platform offers what so as to decide, which platform to chose.

Apple’s iOS, this is the operating system from apple, and is used in iPhone, iPad, it has beautiful user interface and there are great applications in iOS platform. Advantage with iOS is if you own I Pad, Iphone or Ipod user interface is seamless and you don’t need to learn new OS each time.

Advantages:-

Large Applications selection

Easy to use

Disadvantages:-

Customization is less compared to other OS platform

Mostly Paid applications

Android, Android is the most widely used OS platform now a days, it’s powered by google services, it works well with all Google applications such as G Mail, Maps, Navigation.

The power in the android is about customization, you can customize everything on your smart phone with many widgets.

Advantages:-

Very high degree of customization

Disadvantage:-

User experience varies from device to device as all different manufactures support android.

Windows OS: - Windows mobile powered by Microsoft, has very unique experience on home screen, which has “Live Tiles” which gets updated with relevant information.

Application selection is not so great, but logic is quite simple, that you can find the stuff you are looking in very fewer steps.

Advantages:-

Integrated applications are more, like xbox, office, etc.

Disadvantage:-

Smaller application catalogue

I hope with this you will be able to select platform whether you want to go for , iOS, Android or Windows, here budget will also play role, next is the screen size & type.

Screen Size & Type:-

Now a days, phone screen sizes vary from 3.5 inch to 5.5 inch in some cases, most of the brands restrict them self up to 5 inch only.

Unlike television, bigger is not better, because if you go for large screen phone it becomes difficult in holding in hand and talking. So Gadgets Freak doesn’t recommend screen size more than 5 inch in any case.

Also ensure that the phone you buy must have capacitive touch screen with pinch to zoom to enhance touch screen experience.

Check the screen resolution as well, higher resolution means better picture on screen, some cheap phone will be very similar to high end phones but they will have low resolution and low battery backup.

Now there are many marketing gimmicks to confuse you like AMOLED, IPS, TFT screens, these are different type of LCD screens. Goodness of screen is as follows,

TFT < IPS < AMOLED

You can see that IPS screen will produce better colors and graphics than TFT, and AMOLED being the best display you can chose for your smart phone but obviously you need to mint more money so chose wisely!

Now a days if you don't know which phone to buy, simple check for the pixels per inch, popularly known as PPI, higher the PPI better the result!

Camera Mega Pixels:-

There is general assumption that higher the mega pixel of camera, better is the quality, so many handset maker market their phones accordingly. But it is not the fact after certain mega pixel, the difference in the image quality will not be much because capturing image also depends upon other factors like software written for camera, how the image is processed, its like symphony orchestra if everybody plays well then you love it but if it only guitarist playing well and other’s not in tune then it’s noisy.

So only mega pixel doesn’t impact much, but recommended mega pixel size is 5MP to have better pictures.

Processing Power (the dual core & the quad core!!):-

It’s normal to assume that a processor of 1.2Ghz will process better than a processor of 1 Ghz, this is correct up to some extent but supporting RAM and how well the application is written also impacts performance.

Now coming the dual core & quad core myth, normal processor does all the task alone, now if my smart phone has to do 4 task I will assign each task to each core of processor, so obviously the task will be completed faster and in less time so it will consume less energy (battery), this is the theory of quad core or dual core processor.

But problem here is, are all the applications, software written accordingly to take the advantage of all the cores or processing?  the answer is NO, because it requires more efforts and it’s harder to write such programs so whether you have a single core, dual core or quad core, most of the applications will run similarly.

Yes you will see some improved performance in OEM program such as HTC’s own widgets, because they will develop SW accordingly because they have to sell their handset as a higher processing power, but not all developer write programs because it’s difficult as still technology is evolving.

RAM:-

Yes higher the RAM, better is efficiency so better go for a smart phone with higher RAM such a 1GB, or so.

Storage:-

Better to have 2Gb internal memory at least whether you go for any OS platform. But say if you are stuck with an android phone then check out Gadgets Freak's guide to increase internal storage here.

Battery:-

Better to have a battery with higher mah, which is mili ampere per hour. So always check out & compare in between the phones you like as higher mah means higher battery back up.

At Gadgets Freak, it’s always out endeavor to empower customers with knowledge so that consumers can actually know what they are buying. We hope this guide would be useful.

In case you are confused between any phones, please comment, our experts will be Happy to Help!

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