Gonna buy a smart phone. Check this first.
I hope you would be really excited to buy a new phone. I too was always really excited whenever I buy a new phone. The thing is the excitement should continue after buying and using the phone. I would like to share my experience of buying a mobile phone. What are the things you have to care before buying a phone?
Here are some questions to evaluate yourself.
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How much do you want spend to buy a phone?
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What is the platform (IOS, Android, Windows Phone…)?
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What brand do you wish to buy?
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What are the requirements?
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How long are you going to use the phone?
First thing you will think when buying a phone is the budget. Budget always makes a difference when buying a phone. Smart phone mostly starts from $150. If you want to buy a decent phone, you have to spend at least $200 on it.
The next thing is the platform. Which platform you are going to buy the phone. IOS, Android or Windows phone.
Why iPhone?
If you are in an Apple Ecosystem, and money is not a problem (If you are in Apple eco system, definitely money won’t be a problem for you.), then I would strongly suggest you to buy IPhone since you will be tightly integrated with your systems. You have lots of apps on the market and Apple products are always premium products. Some of my friends use Apple products. Whenever they have a problem on their products, Apple NEVER REPAIR IT, they REPLACE IT.
iPhone’s have their own device, own OS. Unlike Android, iPhone’s are always build with keeping the hardware in mind. Android are built without any prefixed hardware. The vendor often customize the android for their hardware. There is always a lag in Android. And iPhone’s are always good in performance and user experience.
But there is some short coming when you buy a iPhone. As said, you have to pay for most of the apps. iPhone doesn’t have any devices of Phablet type. If you want to buy a device with screen size of around 6.5”, then you have to go for Android only. And there will be a single variant to iPhone on each edition and with some colours(Usually Black and White).
Pros:
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Best Smartphones are iPhones.
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Smooth UI and best in Service.
- Works best with Apple Ecosystem.
Cons:
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Costly (Phone, Apps, Accessories).
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Much lesser device options(No Phablets).
Why Android?
If you want to buy with a decent budget and with great power. You can go for Android. Some pros of buying an android phone are there are lots of variant like different brands, different specifications and different prices. Android have almost apps equivalent to IOS.
You have lot of options to choose which specification suits your requirement.
If you are constant social network user, then you need a lot of apps. Usually social networking apps run on background. So, they constantly reside on RAM. So you would require additional RAM to run these apps. If you buy a phone with less amount of RAM, then you would constantly face some lag when using the phone.
If you are a gamer, then you may need a quad core processors with at least 2 GB of RAM, A latest Graphics chip which should support most of the games. You may require a decent screen size of at least 4”. You need lots of space for installing apps. You must have to choose a phone with atleast 4GB of Internal memory. Usually gaming apps take 100’s of MB for installing apps. For gamer’s you have to choose some higher end phone which will be suitable to your requirements.
Be caution: Some phones may specify that they have 16GB of Internal Memory, but there may be possible to use only 4 GB for Apps or even less. The remaining space can be used for storing data. So even if the specs describe that there is lots of space, do some research on how much space is for installing apps.
If you want to use phone to check mails, for office work, then you can opt a phone with screen size of 4” and with a decent RAM Capacity of 1GB and with a decent GPU.
Never go behind the specs. I had a bad experience by going behind the specs. Some phones may sport a good specs like it has a 5MP camera, 4 Inch screen etc, but may lag in quality and service. You have to check whether the service center is also available in your locality.
Pros:
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Lots of Apps available(Lots of App options).
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Good specs at cheaper price.
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Lots of Brand and model. So more device options.
Cons:
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Even a costly Android phone has little bit lag in UI.
Why Windows Phone?
When I was started drafting this blog, i don’t want to include the Windows phone, but soon I realized that I’ve to add it also since I heard that lot of people are moving to Windows Phone which is a quite good and cheap alternative for Android. But you have to sacrifice lots of app option for it. If you buy a Windows Phone, i strongly recommend you to go for Nokia. One Geek stated that he found a good camera in Nokia Lumia phones which is comparable to a High end Android phones. After these reviews, even I (Android user for more than 3 years) also started thinking of moving to Windows phone.
Go atleast for 1GB of RAM(Latest Release of Nokia Lumia **5 series) and a Windows Phone 8 OS. Don’t go for Windows 7.5/7.8 OS.
Pros:
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Good quality hardware at a best price (Nokia Lumia series).
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An Innovative and smooth interface.
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Top 50 Apps are also available on Windows Phone.
Cons:
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Less App options.
When to buy a Smart phone?
Do you think there is a excellent time to buy a smart phone? My Answer is Yes.
Then Why? The reason is smartphone’s costs high when they are released. If you are buying a smart phone after a month from the date its release, you can get it at a 10%-20% lesser price.
So,
Never buy a smartphone as soon it is released.
Let sometime to get some reviews by some Gadget Geeks, do some research. Then buy it.
Never buy a smartphone a year after a release.
It will be outdated one in terms of Specification and OS. Definitely price of the phone will be dropped to 50% but you can’t even use it for a year. Even if they offer an update to the operating system, most of the phones will start to lag after the update.
Conclusion:
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Don’t buy a Phone based only specification. Phones may have good specification but with bad quality.
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Check for the brand and service available in your locality.
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The best time to buy a smart phone is between a month after release and 6-8 months after release. So you can use the phone for atleast a year before moving to a new phone.
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Do some research of the phone, watch some reviews before buying the phone.
See you in my next blog post. Please post your feedback.
