With so many types of cell phones available in the market, it’s important to know the differences between them so you can decide which one is the best for you. Once you’ve figured that out, all that is left to do is find the phone that meets your requirements. Here’s what you need to know before you buy a cell phone.
India is said be one of the biggest arenas for cell phones; second only to China. Owing to a large number of private players in the telecom service sector, the call rates are not just economical, but also well regulated. This makes cell phones not just a necessity, but the handsets sold today also serve multiple purposes. Depending on this segmentation, we have classified phones into different sections to help you pick your phone with more ease.
CLASSIC PHONES
If all phones had a high quality digital camera, a music player and an integrated portable gaming console, there would be no high-end phone segment. If you don’t need these added functions, you can opt for a classic model. These phones need not be devoid of all those functions though; they can still have a little bit of everything. Low end phones are not just economical, but also look good and throw in useful apps like calculators and radios.
BUSINESS PHONES
Business phones are for those who carry out a major chunk of their work over email and need to access documents on the go. Most business phones feature e-mail facilities for multiple email IDs, a QWERTY keypad for ease of typing, a PDF reader, an office suite, and 3G/Wi-Fi connection, amongst other things. It’s better to have a push-mail service on your phone so that you can access mails with ease. Also, you must ensure that you have a good service provider that gives you a stable connection, so that you can stay connected anywhere you go. The QWERTY keypad, size and shape of your phone should be ergonomic, considering the fact that you will be glued to it. Also make sure you keep an eye on the radiation levels, as some business phones are notorious for emitting-high radiation signals. BlackBerry phones seem to be a hot pick for business phones. Their radiation is within SAR standards.
MULTIMEDIA PHONES
Sony Ericsson’s Walkman range of phones was a revolution in the mobile phone industry a few years ago, thanks to their dedicated music controls. But there’s a crowded multimedia phone segment now, with each manufacturer offering a range of phones with several audio and video playback features. Apart from good music and video quality, a media phone needs a good amount of memory to save your collection, an organizer to help you create quick play lists, and an equalizer function to make sure you and tweak the sound to your liking A ash memory card to store video and music comes in handy, so an expandable memory option in your phone is always a bonus and almost all phones now offer SD card slots. Multimedia phones also feature shortcut controls via dedicated buttons for instant access. Most phones also give you an FM radio option. Lastly, check for the quality of headphones. High-end media phones usually come with noise reduction headphones to enhance the overall experience, and since they support stereo signals, you can also opt of A2DP headsets.
CAMERA PHONES
High-end smartphones come with cameras that can even substitute standalone digital cameras, and some of these phones can even record high definition video. However, a high megapixel count is not always the best criterion for picking a camera phone. Although the resolution of the pictures is based on megapixels, you also need a decent lens focus (this can be either fixed or automatic) and flash for good pictures in low light. Fixed focus cameras usually deliver low quality images, and while auto focus cameras may not guarantee good quality, they let you shoot images from close proximity (macro images) if your camera comes with an auto focus lens. Another essential feature is the flash, which could be a single or double LED flash or a Xenon flash. As for zoom, using the digital zoom brings down the quality of the picture drastically. The images can turn out to be grainy, especially if you use the highest level of digital zoom. Some phones also provide optical zoom, which gives your pictures more clarity, but the amount of optical zoom in phones is usually very limited. You will have to ensure that the camera phone you pick has a long-lasting battery, as the camera function does tend to drain the battery. The CyberShot series from Sony Ericsson has really put the brand at the forefront of the camera phones segment.
TOUCH SCREEN PHONES
Touch screen phones have become a rage of sorts; pioneered by Apple, and now adopted by pretty much every cell phone manufacturer. But in order to keep costs down, some manufactures tend to compromise on the quality of the touch screen, which makes it all the more essential for you to be careful when investing in a touch screen phone. Firstly, look into the display size of the screen, especially if you are not used to a stylus and have stubby fingers. The larger the screen, the more comfortable you will be using the touch interface. Ensure that the phone is ergonomically designed for one-hand use, which means that the menus on the user interface should be placed well. Also check for the battery life, as a larger display will drain that much more power. The most important thing in your touch phone is the screen sensitivity and the response time. Check the response time for the programs both with and without a stylus. Also make note of the technology used in the touch screen. Lower end touch screen phones tend to use resistive touch screens which aren’t all that responsive or accurate. High-end phones usually use capacitive touch screens, which are more accurate and responsive, but also costlier.
SOCIAL NETWORKING PHONES
The social networking craze is at an all time high, and most of these networks also feature stripped down versions that are compatible with cell phone browsers. But to make things even easier, most cell phone makers have now come up with phones that have links or bookmarks to popular social networking sites or dedicated apps for your phone. Targeting mainly the younger audience, phones designed for social networking are usually economical and feature apps for Skype, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc for quick access.
Commonly used terms
3G
3G is the third generation of mobile phone standards and technology as released by the International Mobile Telecommunications program (IMT- 2000). 3G technologies will allow various network operators to provide more advanced services and better networking capabilities. It will also support various high-end features like VoIP services, video calls, and high speed broadband.
A2DP
A2DP is an acronym for Advanced Audio Distribution Profile. It is a one-way pro le, unlike a headset or handsfree connect as it cannot help users connect calls wirelessly. It can only stream music on a stereo signal through a Bluetooth connection to headphones or speakers.
AMOLED display
AMOLED is an acronym for Active-matrix organic light-emitting diode and is used to reduce power consumption on portable devices like cell phones and media players. Performance-wise, it is at par with its passive-matrix OLED counterparts, but it requires less power, thus ensuring longer battery runtime.
Android
A Linux-based smartphone operating system, Android is a more popularly known as the software platform created by Google. The platform is open source and cross platform, so it can run on any device designed for it. The system is supported by the Open Handset Alliance.
CDMA
CDMA is an acronym for Code-Division Multiple Access and it falls under the purview of the 3G mobile standards of mobile phone technology, which uses the CDMA channel access to enable transfer of voice, data, and signaling data between mobile phones and cell phone towers.
EDGE
EDGE is an acronym for Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution. It is also referred to as EGPRS or Enhanced GPRS. EDGE is a digital mobile phone technology that enables faster and more reliable data transfer. Although this technology is part of the 3G de nition, it is classi ed as a 2.75G technology. EDGE benefits users who work with data applications requiring high speed, like multimedia programs. Unlike the 3G evolution, which requires an entire network by itself, EGDE is a technology that is used as an addendum to mobile networks using the GSM technology.
GSM
GSM is an acronym for Global System for Mobile Communications. It’s the most widely used standard for cell phones all over the world. A GMS enabled phone enables its users to change serviced providers without changing their handsets via a small smart card called the Subscriber Identity Module, commonly known as a SIM card. GSM also supports upgraded packets like GPRS and EDGE.
Half-QWERTY keypad
A half-QWERTY pad falls midway between a full QWERTY and numeric keypad. It has two alphabets on each key. This way, the keypad is narrow enough to let the user type with one hand while holding the device with ease.
IMEI
IMEI stands for International Mobile Equipment Identity. It is a unique number provided to GSM and 3G enabled mobile handsets. It is embedded in the cell phone. It can usually be found beneath the battery It enables you to identify whether a particular mobile handset is original or not. It can only identify devices; it have no bearing on the service provider. You can nd out the IMEI of your phone by typing *#06# on your GSM or 3G mobile phones. Newer models equipped with the CDMA equipment use MEID or Mobile Equipment Identifier, following a similar format as the IMEI.
Push email
Push email is a serviced provided in smartphones and PDAs to deliver emails to the device in real-time. Push email works on a simple technique, which “pushes” emails to the client as soon as it arrives, rather than making the client wait and collect mail manually. It is of great help to people
who constantly communicate on the move. BlackBerry was the rst smartphone/PDA to offer this technology to its users.
QWERTY keyboard layout
QWERTY are the first six letters that appear in the first row of a standard English keyboard. This keypad resembles the alphabet keyboard on the computer and helps you type on your smartphone with ease. It is most helpful while typing out email and formal correspondence.
Smartphone
While there is no sure way of describing a smartphone, essentially it s a mobile phone which features the functionalities similar to that of a computer. Such devices have a dedicate OS, a faster processor, a larger display, and can run specially designed o ce and communication applications.
Stylus
A Stylus is a pen-shaped input device mainly used for PDAs, graphics tablets, Tablet PCs, and touch-based cell phones. Using a stylus improves the precision of the touch interface, especially if the options to be selected are small. A stylus is also very helpful for drawing or writing directly on the screen.
Trackball
A trackball is pointing device that features a four-axis control, just like a joystick. It has a small ball fit inside the surface of the device, which is
partially exposed to let the user rotate it in any direction with his fingers, allowing faster scrolling in all four directions.
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