Top 5 Smartphones At A Glance

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Using a cell phone these days no longer means fair making a simple phone call anymore. There are many ways a normal citizen like you and I can connect to this exciting cyber world of information. Blackberries are no longer the only smartphones out there, not since iPhone practically trolled through the smartphone universe like a giant tornado a few years back anyways. The furture of mobile computing is here. Things you archaic to have to do with a full size laptop, is now made possible with a handheld device, anywhere there’s a cellphone signal. However, buying the right phone that suits you is absolutely essential. Afterall, there’s no use in buying an expensive piece of gadget if you don’t know how to spend it, or even cared for the option. For those of you wanting more information, or if you’re ready to design the jump to the smartphone world, here is my top 5 list of smartphones to look out for.

#5. BlackBerry Storm 2

The blackberry storm offers a very easy access of many applications suitable for a typical business man like integrated email and calendar to withhold up with your schedule on the skim. All blackberries also offer a fairly established application market and most widely used apps like facebook, twitter, and Skype are available. This phone sits on my top 5 list for one major reason. With the history of blackberries for the past years, this new addition makes the transition easy. Direct migration from an older and/or different blackberry model makes it simple and offers practically zero learning curve so you can hit the ground running. The downside, and another reason that this phone stays in 5th place, is the spend of proprietary software, the blackberry OS and the lack of major improvements over the years. Said phone is available exclusively at Verizon.

#4. HTC HD2

This new addition of the HTC lineup is just about as good as it gets for a smartphone. Running on Windows Mobile 6.5 OS, this phone can come by a lot more business oriented than everyone thinks. Complete syncing ability with outlook, you can handle your calendars and email just like you would on your home or work computer, even on exchange servers. The phone itself offers one of the biggest screens available at 4.3″ (equivalent of a widescreen Garmin GPS) and there is a big reason for it too. Now for those of you who are interested in why such a big screen…. This phone offers remote desktop option. You can literally connect your phone to control your computer at home or work! For the occasion of say…missing an essential paper at home right before class or a meeting? Simply connect to your computer, email yourself the paper, and print that sucker when you get to a computer. Windows Mobile is a solid OS even though the library of the market place isn’t very astronomical. On top of that, this phone comes with the 1Ghz snapdragon processor so there are plenty of room for potential updates (IE: Windows Mobile 7). Said phone is available exclusively at T-Mobile

#3. iPhone 4

Besides many of the previously listed functions from other phones, this unusual iPhone 4 offers things other companies are still working on. One of the major selling point is the front and back cameras on the iPhone 4 to allow video conferencing Apple termed Face Time. This is a major breakthrough because it should only be a matter of time before Skype will acquire use of it and provide video chat on skype. Also, the HD camera on the back of the new iPhone 4 offers a large alternative to using a full size camcorder when making videos, here is a quick demo available to see the difference between an iPhone 4 and a Canon 7D professional camera. One thing to mention too, is the quality of the touch screen all iPhones offer, the precision of it is unmatched and this alone can give you a complete meltdown if you run into a bad touchscreen on a bad day… Now, the reason behind the popularity of this phone, or iPhone in general (beside its brand), is the 200,000 plus apps available for any iPhone owner at a touch of a button. iPhone capitalized the use of itunes accounts and created a one stop shop for anything from music, to podcasts, even games for you to get by at work, but that’s another story to tell on a different entry. Some of you may ask, “If the iPhone 4 is so fantastic, why are you ranking it 3rd? ” There are reasons why it’s not on the top of my list, and the first has to do with Apple’s rules to keep many app developers from making their applications available via the App Store. Without explaining further to risk going off track, here is an example about Apple’s ban to Flash based softwares which causes many developers to rewrite the same apps twice just to make it work on an iPhone. Besides that, iPhone is also “unfortunately” available only through AT&T, and recently AT&T has decided to take away the unlimited mobile data usage so playing with your iPhone can potentially get you a report high bill.

#2. Motorola DROID

Google has been offering Android OS to other phones since before this phone was released but this is the first to have navigation made by Google. Google has created a titanic database of road maps and even Google Earth. This new navigation system simply incorporates a GPS built into the phone and google map. The precision of the GPS from this phone exceeds my garmin GPS and it’s completely free, plus it updates when Google updates so there’s no need to purchase new road maps. Although the Android App Market hasn’t been here long and has ways to go before it’ll catch up to the size of Apple’s App Store, it offers almost everything I had for my iPhone before I “converted.” Google has made a huge collection of Apps to compose your life easier, here is a link for some of the Google products for mobile phones. One of the Google app I’ve grown to enjoy a lot was Google Listen. It’s a simple RSS feed reader which allows you to subscribe and listen to web audio, in other words, podcasts. Listening to podcasts was the one thing I worried about losing when I switched from an iPhone to this. Google not only solved my problem, they’ve made it better because I no longer have to search for my podcast everytime but instead it’s subscribed apt on my phone. Now even though this is the phone I’m currently using, there are some room for improvement. First, really sub-par battery life. With the amount of time I spend on my phone, I cannot go without charging for more than a day if I run it at its potential. It has a very nice high definition screen but if you turn the brightness up, which most people do, the battery will last less than 12 hours. Also, the touchscreen is only okay, not nearly as good as the iPhone and precision can be all over the place at times. DROID is available exclusively at Verizon.

#1. HTC DROID Incredible

Because of the dynamic relationship Google has with multiple cell phone makers on the Android OS, this phone has almost the same feature as the DROID by Motorola. And since they are so similar, I thought I’d share some space and mention a note worthy feature both phones have. Unlike the iPhone, Droid Market has tethering software available so both of these Droids are fully capable of connecting a computer to the internet using a USB cable. This comes in VERY handy when you’re at a place where access to internet on your laptop is not possible. You simply connect your phone to your laptop with your USB charging cable and using some of the available tethering software (IE: PdaNet) you can be online with your laptop in seconds. Now, onward to what makes this a better phone…

*Ques Drum Roll*

The Incredible offers solutions to all of which seems to be Motorola Droid’s shortcomings. First, a distinguished better touchscreen overall. Even though iPhone has made better hardware/software combination, the Incredible touchscreen doesn’t sporadically go all over the state like the Motorola Droid does. Second, a much better battery life, even with the same quality of screen. Third, asthetically speaking, the lack of a sliding keyboard made it much lighter and slimmer, but it may just be a matter of plan. This phone also comes with the 1Ghz snapdragon processor instead of the 550Mhz for Motorola Droid, making it one of the fastest running phones out there. Finally, the 8MP built-in camera instead of 5MP which most high end phones offer these days, making it the “IT” phone to have, at least for the next few months before a newer phone gets released anyways.

Overall, I would recommend everyone to test out as powerful as you can before making the purchase, and try to go multiple times before making your decision. Compose sure you’re comfortable with what you’re getting, and feel free to ask as many questions as you possibly can. With that said, I bid you good hunting!

Stephen Shankland, Jobs: “Why Apple banned Flash from the iPhone”, CNET news