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How to choose a good mobile phone

Mobile phones have become inexpensive tools for performing numerous tasks from basic use of sending SMSs, making a phone call to sending money. The limitation of the use of mobile phones does not end there; these small and portable electronic gadgets are capable of handling numerous tasks than you will ever need.

Growing from the basic phones that were able to handle only SMS and Voice functions, the mobile gadget has in the recent past seen growth that has made mobile phones a primary need in day to day human life.

I remember buying my first second hand mobile phone Nokia 5110 in 2003 from an Indian shop. The phone was re-sprayed and shelved as new. After some time using the phone the black color began to scratch revealing the original color of the phone. These first generation mobile phones were heavy and large and yet could only handle SMSs and Voice. Today gadgets of the same size and weight and even price are much more able run tens of thousands of applications.

In a world we are living in today choosing a good electronic gadget known as mobile phone can be more challenging that getting the money to buy it. True, when you walk into a mobile shop window shopping for a good type of mobile phone to suit your need, you may end up not making up your mind on what type of mobile phone you want. The reason here is that these phones have the same features and sometimes they differ on price something that makes you as a buyer ponder on why this type of mobile phone is higher in price (sometimes in tens of thousands) than the other while both of them have the same features.

The answer as to why certain mobile phones from certain manufacturers are more expensive than the others yet they both posses the same support for the features you require as a user might be hidden in the quality of the more expensive phone or might not exist altogether. What you need to know as a user is that some products sell because of their brand and nothing more. While some users prefer to have more expensive phones even when a less expensive phone could just do fine, some users wants to see the value for their money.

If you are one of those users who wants to see the value for their money then, shopping for a good type of a mobile phone could just be another nightmare due to many factors that requires scientific evaluation to come up with a good mobile phone that will at least serve you for 3-5 years before thinking of buying another one just because there is new phone in the market with new technology that your phone don’t support.

Mobile hopping is a trait that forces people who have became used to using mobile phones change or buy different types of mobile phones just because they think that the phone they have does not support certain features. It is true that you can buy a phone thinking that it will make your life easy but instead it just complicates every thing making even making a call complicated.

After I got tired of my first mobile phone I went and bought a certain brand that I will not disclose for now until I check the receipts for the exact date and model. The brand was very popular but this type of phone from this manufacturer was a mess. I also came to understand that the shops selling these phones swapped batteries and other accessories. They for instance revived dead phones and placed them for sale in their shops as new phones. My new phones battery could not go beyond 48 hours before discharging. One day the phone just fell from a stool and it lost display.

The phone that followed was Motorola c113 small and compact and was the glory of those days. This small phone had a battery that could take up to 7 days before discharging. It was so powerful that no falling down could stop it from operating. I remember it falling down several times at most with severe impact but up to this day my Motorola C113 is still breathing even though changes in the mobile technology have outdone its usefulness.

The reason I brought the Motorola C113 to this topic even though some argue that it should not even be mentioned because it cannot even support polyphonic ring tones leave alone color screen, is because recently I bought another phone Tecno by origin. It cost less than the amount I spend on the Motorola C113. As I have become accustomed to the use of it, the Tecno brand, I have came across several features that are useful but are regularly overlooked by the mobile phone user because of how flashy a mobile phone looks.

Composing a text message

Composing a text message using your phones keypad is one of the distasteful acts you would want to do last. As we all know sometimes you are presented with a task of communicating using SMS. This might not be your preference but situations do occur that forces you to use the SMS utility found in your phone. It may be an emergency, lack of enough credit to make a call or anything similar. When you are approached with these kinds of circumstances you begin to see and appreciate some phones capabilities than the other.

My most recent Tecno phone is as good as any 2^nd generation phone with multimedia support, memory card support and dual SIM capability. When I was shopping for this kind of phone, it didn’t occur to me that there are other important features than dual SIM, Memory card and multimedia support like Bluetooth technology and Internet because I just wanted to hear some music and be able to use my two lines without the need to switch of the phone whenever I wanted to use the other line. Well, it turned out after few weeks with the phone that I realized that had I paid too much attention or maybe made some serious inquiries, I would have parted with a phone with all the features needed by adding some small amount of money since there were better Tecno’s than the one I bought. This happens to many buyers because of some exaggerated features that make you forget to look for the value of your money and simply concentrate of unnecessary features that don’t make sense.

It is a known fact that many buyers make conclusions on assumptions that if a certain service is available in this type of phone then the other service is also available. Like in my case having the multimedia support convinced me that the model of the phone I was purchasing was Bluetooth and internet enabled but to my surprise even changing the wallpaper is impossible leave alone hard.

The Tecno T331 is perfect, loud ringing tone that gives you no excuse not to pick up that phone, dust resistant keypad, its weight and multimedia support makes this phone stand out among its peers but the decision by the manufacturer of this phone to leave out key important services like the Bluetooth, the internet and ability of the user to change background image is unacceptable as unacceptability is concerned.

Comparing the Motorola C113 input method and this phone makes it even worse. The Motorola C113 input method is stable than the Tecno T331 input method because Motorola C113 does not loose this setting once set. I remember setting the input method once for my Motorola C113 series something I have to do every time I am typing a phonebook name or SMS. The Tecno T331 looses the input method setting even if set from the settings menu. If you are an alien or coming from a different planet than ours then I may have to elaborate what input method means, the input method packed in the software of every mobile phone in the market today is a feature allowing the user to select preferred input method. This feature differs on sub-function naming and method. Take for example our two phones the Motorola C113 and Tecno T331. In Motorola C113 the sub-function names are as follows;

 iTap English: this method allows you to press any combination of keys while the phone constructs the words for you. In some other phones like T331 the sub-function is called smartABC.  

Tap English: this put the iTap English function into exhaustion allowing you to have more control on the construction of words you are keying. It is known as ABC in T331.

There are plenty of input methods out there, but the two mentioned above stands out especially in an English speaking territory.

By now we can say that setting the input method preference is tiresome and not worth of your time. Your phone should be able to store your preference unless you want to change to another input method yourself. The inability to store this setting forces you to spend a share of your time setting it every time you want to store phonebook names or compose SMS.

There are plenty of small but useful things that we will look into God willing but now lets put a close to this article and let me remind you the most needed features you should look for while shopping for a mobile phone.

1. multiple SIM cards
2. Camera 2.0 pixels and above
3. Bluetooth
4. Internet
5. Torch
6. Multimedia Support
7. Scheduler
8. Longer battery Life
9. Reasonable Price
10. Strong body structure