What Smart Phones You Should Buy
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Image: Richard Grassie
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Smartphones are unquestionably today’s most important form of consumer tech. They’re no longer just for business; they’re scaled down computers that keep you informed, entertained and in touch. You probably spend more time with your smartphone than you do with your family, so having the right relationship with yours is key. How do you choose from the five main types? Here’s a quick guide.
Key to the categories
Kudos Will lend you an air of gravitas amongst colleagues and friends
Business Popular with business users, usually due to email / presentation skills
Device Range Lots of handsets at a variety of prices
Stylish Looks good, makes you look good, therefore makes you feel good
Qwerty Smartphones with full, non-touchscreen keyboards
Customisable Home screens, skins and app storage can be tweaked
Web Browsing HSDPA equipped and offer exemplary browsing
Social Networking Adored by members of the always-on set
Fashionable You will see lots of these being flashed around
Apps A huge app store with plenty of new apps regulalrly added
Fun Good for gaming, music/video playback, travel, exercise, dining, social apps
Mature Beloved of very experienced users; i.e., older people
Nokia
- Business
- Device Range
- QWERTY
- Web Browsing
- Mature
Think Nokia and you get classic navigation, menus that have barely changed for years, and slim handsets like the Nokia 1100 (the biggest seller of all time; over 200 million units worldwide since 2003). Nokia is by far the world’s largest mobile device manufacturer, with a 33 percent market share. While it lags on smartphones, the consumer-focused N and business-orientated E series are both big sellers.
The Good: Nokia’s best are as solid as they are ubiquitous, and Symbian is the world’s most-used OS. The N series was the first to offer a good quality camera, music and video playback and GPS navigation, all on a decent-sized screen, plus old-school phone features. The most recent N97 is a solid all-round smartphone. The N900 with the Maemo OS rather than Symbian is more fun to use, and the full QWERTY on most of Nokia’s smartphones keeps them popular with business users, who don’t know what all the fuss about multi-tasking is: their Nokia’s done it for years.
The Bad: Nokia’s success owes more to loyalty than innovation. The handsets have looked and behaved the same for many years; the likes of the N900 seem incredibly clunky compared to sexier alternatives from Apple, HTC or RIM. Nokia has introduced touchscreens, but Symbian, as it stands, isn’t suited to touchscreen use. Nokia must get this: browsing, networking, quality apps and sublime user experience are now more important than familiarity and a camera with a Carl Zeiss lens.
What’s Next: Symbian 3 is Nokia’s latest hope. Reports do not suggest a great leap forward, but Nokia claims “over 100 usability improvements.” Due in early 2011 Symbian 4 should offer a more top-to-bottom reimagining of the elderly OS.
MeeGo, another open-source OS (a collaboration between Nokia and Intel, a development from the Maemo OS), is another reason to get excited. It one can be used across multiple platforms, from your satnav to your TV and, of course, smartphone. Its USP? An app downloaded on one device will work on all the others.
App store: ovi store Number of apps: 10,000+
What Nokia says about you…
You don’t like to faff. You’ve always had Nokia and you always will, because it’s reliable and gets the job done. And, usually, the camera’s pretty good too.
Our favourite handsets
NOKIA N97
NOKIA E72
NOKIA N900
WINMO
- Business
- Device Range
- Customisable
- Web Browsing
- Social Networking
- Mature
Ten years ago, when Microsoft Windows Mobile launched, people wanted the same systems they had on their PCs. WinMo offered scaled-down versions of its Office, Outlook and other programs in some of the first do-it-all devices (smartphones and PDAs). In 2004, it accounted for 23 percent of worldwide smartphone sales, but by 2008 this had almost halved. Partly because of greatly increased competition, but also because of Microsoft’s ongoing failure to keep its OS up-to-date in the face of that competition.
The Good: Business users are still drawn to WinMo’s corporate-like nature, which allows you to access work email, calendars, office desktop, plus view attachments in all Microsoft’s proprietary file formats. With newer builds of Windows Mobile 6.5, IE Mobile 6 and the likes of HTC’s HD2 and HD Mini’s Sense interface overlaid on its own, WinMo is finally starting to come into line with Apple and Android for ease and enjoyability of use. (By “come into line,” we mean “lag slightly less far behind.”)
The Bad: WinMo 6.5 retains many of the basic flaws of its earliest incarnations: excessive complexity, reliance on a stylus for touchscreens, lack of third-party – and, indeed, first-party – apps and grudging lip service to cameras, media players and anything that might be tentatively described as “fun.” The iPhone, Android and Nokia’s E series have all equalled it in most business users’ eyes. Not surprisingly, WinMo’s worldwide smartphone market share has fallen; it’s currently in fifth place with a 6.8 per cent share, according to Gartner.
What’s Next: Later this year Microsoft will finally start putting the Windows Phone 7 Series into mobile devices. Announced in February, the new OS has been built from scratch. That it’ll be integrated with the Xbox Live online gaming service and will offer greater social networking compatibility suggest the dull, workmanlike approach of yore has been consigned to the dustbin of history. With proper multi-touch support at last, hopefully the dreaded WinMo stylus will be joining it there.
App store: App Store for Windows Mobile Number of apps: 2,500
What WinMo says about you…
You crave security, know what you like and stick with it. You’re quite possibly an IT professional and your favourite wafer flavour is the standard salted.
Our favourite handsets
HTC HD2
Htc HD Mini
Samsung Omnia Pro
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