Things you should note before buying a new mobile phone

In today's world many people make a decision of buying a phone just based on advertisements, it may be on media or mouth of word. Just by reading what is advertised does not mean you are going to get all the features in a phone. With a number of smartphone  makers in the Indian market with plethora of their smartphone offerings, it becomes difficult for many to choose the best phones.  Actually to buy the right cell phone you will need to take a variety of factors into consideration, hence below are the  points which may help you in finalizing a right phone.
  
1. First decide which phone to buy, A smart phone or just a Basic Phone.

If you want to use the cell phone exclusively as a phone and not for gaming console or for  multimedia features like camera, mp3 player, video playback, than simply go for a basic phone which is cheap and handy.

2. Budget 

Its the most important deciding factor in purchasing your dream phone. Decide to stick to your budget before buying a phone as there are plenty of phones ranging from rupees 3k to 60k in the market. It is not necessary that an expensive handset will always come with better configuration and functions than an inexpensive smartphone. In Indian market there are lot of Chinese brands (XIAOMI, ONE PLUS, QUIKU, Coolpad, Lenovo, VIVO, Meizu to name few) which are selling cell phones like a hot cake.
   

3. Operating System

 If you are looking for Smart Phones than before you step out to buy a handset, learn about different types of operating systems like Android, iOS, Windows, Blackberry etc. In today's market you mainly see iOS and Android. Whereas iOS is seen only in Apple phones and majority of the market is captured by Android.

  4. Screen and Size

  In market you will find lots of displays like qHD display, AMOLED display, full HD display, TFT and Apple’s proprietary Retina display etc. A HD display has a resolution of 1280*720, a full HD display has a 1920*1080 resolution where as a qHD has a resolution of 2560*1440. The higher the resolution more website/image content and higher the image and video clarity. The mobile should have at least a HD display that can play HD content. In high end phones you will find a resolution of 1440*2560.

Screen sizes may vary from less than 4'' to 6''.  Small phones having screen size of 4" or less are easy to hold or pocket but browsing or watching movies is difficult due to its small size. Medium size screens 4" to 5" are easy to handle, browse, chat etc. Large size screens > 6" are useful in watching videos, reading etc but are difficult to hold/pocket.
   

5.Battery 
 A very important feature to look out for if you are a frequent long distance traveler. When going through the specifications always look for talk time. Always lookout  for 12hour or more 2g talk time. Less than 12 hour is totally NO. Apple and HTC are known for bad batteries.

 6. Processor & RAM 
There are variety of processors available on devices like single-core, dual-core, quad-core, octa core. More processors are considered good but just like the budget factor, many processors on the smartphone doesn’t always mean that the phone will perform well and depends on a lot of other factors. A dual core on the apple performs better than many octa core processors in the market. But in case of RAM,more RAM is always better, which can perform multiple tasks.

 7. Camera

 So it is an important feature to consider as well. A real proper camera’s picture quality will always be better than one from a mobile phone but the thing is, the point and shoot or DSLR isn’t always with you. Usually we consider more the megapixel, the better the quality of the picture. But that's not the case its also depends upon many other features like camera optics, shutter speed, aperture etc. Go for good camera optics rather than higher resolution. Opt for handsets with camera featuring double toned LED flash and BSI sensor. The easiest is to find and compare photos taken by different mobile phones by users that uploaded them to the internet. A really good site for comparing every detail from color to shapes to text is GSM Arena’s Photo Compare Tool.


8. Storage
Today's games and high resolution videos take up large area of memory hence its highly recommend for opting as much internal storage as possible. The minimum on most handsets, like the iPhone 6, is 16GB, but more phones are coming standard with 32GB. 32GB or more is always good. Most handsets come with microSD card slot but there are many which lack expand-ability via microSD card and feature non expandable inbuilt storage. A microSD card can help expand your storage.



9. Connectivity
 Earlier the mobiles used to come with 2G or GPRS but due to its speed constraints its been superseded by 3G and 4G  handsets. If you need faster file sharing, seamless video or music steaming then you must go for a handset supporting 4G LTE. Smartphones. Today we get 4G enabled smartphones in the range of 7K (RED MI Note, Lenovo 6000 etc)


10. Other Key Features to consider

a. Double SIM slot

b. Finger print Security

c. NFC

d. After sale service

e. Phone carriers

f. Removable battery

g. Inbuilt paid apps like Office, shareit etc.

h. Quick charging


Did you find the above tips helpful in choosing the right smartphone?  Share your views with me in the comments below.