Buying Guides -> Hardware -> Mobile phones

Smart Shopping: Mobile Phones

Team CHIP | 27 February 2009

Smart Shopping: Mobile Phones

Brands available: Apple, Asus, BenQ-Siemens, Bird, Blackberry, Fly, HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Samsung, Spice, Sony Ericsson

Buying a phone these days can put you in a real soup. The numerous features and complex price structures can confuse you. Buyers run a huge risk of deciding on certain phones because they merely look ‘cool’. However, after the purchase, the experience isn't as rosy as one would expect. Sales people and advertisements often preach about preposterous advantages of buying products from their stores, but are these offers worth falling for? Here’s how you can overcome false claims and pick a phone for yourself.

First Things First

Decide what you want to buy and what you are looking for. There are basically three main categories of cell phones: business, multimedia and basic phones. Even though the gap between the first two is slimming with every new release, it makes sense to stay up-to-date with what is good for you and what’s not.

Features

Multimedia phones provide good audio- video playback and often have high memory capacity. These phones usually have good cameras. The image resolution of a camera is measured by a unit called ‘megapixels’. Many users mistake this parameter to be the prime reason of an image's high quality. However, there are other factors like shutter speed that can affect the quality of images, irrespective of the resolution. Expandable memory allows users to increase the memory capacity of the phone using card slots. Touch sensitive screens have the advantage of a stylus for navigation. Business phones (including PDAs) often have QWERTY keyboards and pre-installed applications such as office suites and PDF readers. GPS (Global Positioning System) can be used to help one easily navigate through a city as well as provide live traffic updates. Internet connectivity can be achieved using technologies such as GPRS, EDGE and 3G.

How to choose

If you are looking for multimedia phones then make sure that it has good audio and video playback and that it supports many file formats. Memory size is something that plays an important role. Even if the phone doesn’t have enough in-built memory, it should at least have an expansion card slot. Check the camera of the phone for still imaging as well as for video recording. Make sure that the user interface is easy to understand. Judge the battery life of the phone by checking both, the stand-by time and the talk time. Dual SIM phones can save you the cost of buying two phones since they accommodate two SIM cards of different service providers that can be used at the same time.

Jargon Buster:

QWERTY: Keypads that have the same key formats like those of a computer keyboard. Each letter of the alphabet is on a separate key.

General Packet Radio Service (GPRS): Used by GSM networks to provide Internet connectivity to mobile devices. It can provide speeds up to 114 kbits/s

Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution (EDGE): EDGE provides with enhanced speeds of up to 236.8 kbit/s.

3G: 3G networks can provide users with data transfer speeds of up to 14.4 Mbit/s

CDMA/GSM: Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) are two main cellular networking technologies. CDMA handsets rarely allow users to change the service.

Dual SIM: A phone that can accommodate SIM cards from two service providers at a time.

Symbian/Java: Symbian and Java are operating systems for mobile devices. Java applications can be installed on both platforms while Symbian applications can only be installed in Symbian phones.

A2DP:  An acronym for 'Advanced Audio Distribution Profile', this technology allows transmission of stereo audio signals wirelessly over Bluetooth. Compatible Bluetooth headphones or speakers are required for using this feature.