What phone should I buy?

Buying a smart phone these days is almost as hard as finding someone you want to marry!  Unfortunately, you can’t “date” your phone for a long time to see if you are ready to make a long-term commitment.  So, just how should you go about choosing a phone?

Just like finding a spouse, the first thing is to think about what matters to you.  In the case of your phone, how and how much are you going to use it?  Just to make calls?  For texting?  Stream videos or music?  Are you going to be using all the time, or maybe just once or twice a day?  What’s your budget?  Are there other things that matter to you?  Like you want the “latest and greatest”, or the “hip” phone, or do you need a big screen because your eyes are bad, or want a small phone so it will fit in your pocket, or a waterproof phone because you work at a pool, etc.

Once you have a pretty good idea of what matters to you, then think about the manufacturer.  There are basically three options: Android phones, iPhones, or Windows phones.  The last of these are not too popular so we suggest you stay away from them at least for now.  So, it comes down to Android or iPhones.  Both great choices.  The former has so many choices in phones and manufacturers that you can pretty much get anything you want or need, and any price point you want, from virtually free, to many hundreds of dollars. If budget is an issue, you want an Android phone.  If budget is less of a consideration, then either will work.  How to decide?  Well, if you use other Apple devices, either computers or Tablets, then an iPhone makes a lot of sense.  The interface on all the Apple devices are similar so you will pick up how to use your new iPhone quickly.  If it matters to you, iPhones are THE phone that the style conscious tend to use (OK – so as a Geek what do I know about style?  Not much, so I’m just parroting what my style-smart children tell me).  If you don’t use other Apple products, either phone will work.  We recommend you go into a store and try them both out.  See which one fits in your hand the best.  Type something on the on-screen keyboard.  Some people find that the Android keyboards are much better than the one on the IPhone, and others feel the opposite.  (You say to-MAY-to, and I say to-MAH-to).  If you are doing a lot of texting, then that matters!  Try the text to speech function, too.  Siri on iPhones and Google-Speech to Text functionally work about the same, but some like one more than the other.

I wish I could make a clear cut recommendation.  We certainly get asked a lot: which phone should I buy?  But, just like buying a car (my favorite analogy to using computers), it really is a personal choice.  Of course, after you choose the phone, the next big thing is choosing the best phone plan for you.  That’s another whole ball of wax, and a topic for another day!

As always, if we can help you after you get your new phone, call us!  We configure phones for our clients all the time, connecting to networks, iTunes, personal and business e-mail addresses, etc.  We’d be glad to help!