A quick guide to buying the perfect smartphone for you

Alright folks – welcome to another post by me, the tech pundit. This post is for those of you who are still wondering which phone to buy, basically which one suits your need the best. What should you consider before arriving at a decision?

Budget

This is the first thing you are gonna want to look at before looking for phones. Because there is no point in having a 20k budget and looking for a current gen iPhone.Therefore I split costs into five categories: inexpensive (below 10K), moderate (10 – 20k), value for money (20 – 30k), the have beens (30-40k) and lavish (40K and above).I think the above list is fairly simple to understand - ‘the have beens’ include phones that have been replaced with newer model phones like the S5 for the S4 and therefore are cheaper than before.

Operating System

The operating system is something you should pay close attention to. Would you choose IOS for its simplicity, Android for its freedom or windows for its more personalized experience? Also if you’re a techie, it’s worth noting that all these OS’ offer their own custom voice integration programs. Android has Google Now, IOS has Siri and windows has Cortana (relatively new).  In case you didn't know the voice integration provides a hands free experience. Here a simple example of using Google now to send a message – “okay Google” (open voice recognition) “send message to mom” pause “what time are you back”. The audio is processed in a few seconds and the phone asks for confirmation to send, respond “yes”. And it’s complete. Simple and it’s a really cool experience!

RAM

RAM comes in many values ranging from 512MB to about 3GB. It all basically comes down to this simple formula, more RAM = more multiprocessing. Which means that you can have many apps open without affecting the speed of the phone. So, it boils down to if you are a savvy user versus a functional one.

Processor speed

This is another aspect which you should pay close attention to. The higher the processor speed the higher the overall performance of the phone, same as laptops and computers. Thus if you want to render games at a high graphic level a phone with something with a 2.0 GHZ processor or above would be ideal. Whereas if you all you use your phone is for calls, messaging and emails then speed between 1.0 and 2.0 GHZ would be most suitable.Another thing you might observe while looking at phones is the number of cores that they have. Like computers, phones too have cores, each with a different purpose. Basically the more the cores – the more efficiently the tasks are processed. This also aids battery life. (Give examples of phones and how that will help)

Screen size

Screen size varies from phone to phone. IPhone in general have small screens while most Samsung phones have medium sized screen. While looking through phones you’re going to want to look for screens measuring 4 inches, 4.5 inches, 5 inches or 5.5 inches. Because anything smaller or larger would be quite uncomfortable to hold and talk on.

Battery

The easiest way to find the battery life of the phone of your choice is to type ["your phone name" 3G talk-time] as this is what takes up the most amount of battery life. Therefore if can last up 10 or above hours your good to go.

Camera

This is something purely preference based. For me having a decent camera on my phone is somewhat important. The more megapixels the camera has, the better - this is in fact a common misconception (although it may be true in some very minor cases). What matters more are factors such as quality of lens, speed of shutter and an overall good aperture. Another misconception is that an 8 MP photo is double the size of a 4 MP photo, this is actually false. Because 8MP= 3264 x 2448 and 4MP= 2272 x 1704, thus as you can see it isn't double the size.

Here are a couple of examples of a configuration you can consider while looking for a phone:

Person 1

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 – working adult      
OS: Android
Speed: fast
Price: extravagant budget
Screen size: huge
Battery: lasts a day
Camera: above average, used often
Strength: screen is weak but flip cover case provides 360* protection
Weight: in between heavy and average

Person 2

Nokia Lumia 720 – student

OS: Windows 8.1, Love the functionality the phone presents, as well as the customization of the start screen and live tiles.

Speed: fast

Price: value for money
Screen size medium
Battery: lasts up to two days on 3G/WI-FI
Camera: use it often, stellar quality
Strength: strong – no scratches or cracks on the phone

Person 3

Nexus 4 – student
OS: android, cheaper than any apple phone, highly configurable, good apps and design fast
Price: value for money
Screen size: large
Battery: lasts a day on WI-FI
Camera: used rarely

Strength: appears to be strong, no scratches so far     _________________________________________________

If you go about it in this way before purchasing a phone, it will save you lot of trouble and importantly money and give you the best experience possible.

Now that I've laid out the guide lines for you what is the right smartphone for you?