Smartest Smartphone for Me?

 by Cris Beltran

Which is the best smartphone for me?
Market researcher Gartner estimates around 172 million smartphones were sold last year. According to Gartner, the Q3 2010 numbers grew 35% from 2009.

If your contract is about to expire with your current carrier, then chances are, you're looking for the latest and greatest smartphone available in the market. I have to warn you that the latest is not always the greatest.

There are many things to consider when choosing the best smartphone for you.
Things to consider (in no particular order of importance):

1.Carrier - Voice/Data/Customer Service/Price
2.Device
3.Operating System and Apps
4.Network Size

Carrier - Recently Consumer Reports released carrier ratings in 9 Categories. This included value, voice service, data, support, knowledge of the CSRs’ and how fast they resolved issues. U.S. Cellular rated highest with a huge lead, Verizon and Sprint almost tied at second place, T-Mobile came in third, while AT&T came in dead last.

Device - Once you have found the carrier for you, then look at the actual phones.
Size Matters: It’s an age old expression "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Smartphones come in the smallest (screen) sizes, to the gigantic in nature. If you’re into the huge screens, here are some recommendations for you:

US Cellular: Samsung Mesmerize 4", Verizon: Motorola Droid X 4.3", Sprint: HTC EVO 4G 4.3", T-Mobile: HTC HD7 4.3", AT&T: Samsung Captivate/Focus 4"
Keyboards: If you can’t live without a physical keyboard (like me), here are a few options:
US Cellular: LG Apex, Verizon: Motorola Droid 2, Sprint: Samsung Epic 4G, T-Mobile: G2, AT&T: Blackberry Torch

Camera Phone: If you’re looking for large megapixels for your camera phone, here are a few suggestions:
US Cellular: Samsung Mesmeriz 5.0 MP, Verizon: Droid X or Incredible 8 MP, Sprint: HTC EVO 8.0 MP - 1.3 MP(front facing camera), T-Mobile: myTouch 4G 5.0 MP, AT&T: Iphone 4 5.0 MP


OS and Apps - The 5 popular Operating Systems are Apple iOS, Google Android, Windows Phone 7, webOS and Blackberry 6.
 
It’s hard to talk about the Operating System without talking about the Apps. It seems whenever you see a commercial on TV or on a street billboard, they tend to boast the size of their app store. To the majority, apps are what makes or breaks the type of phone they are going to purchase. It is true that most apps are available on all these platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, or Pandora... there are apps that are available only on one operating system. I myself could not live without "Google Navigation" on my phone, and that is currently only available on the Android OS.

Number of Apps: (estimates)
Apple iOS: 200,000 (July 2010), Android OS: 70,000 (July 2010), Windows Phone 7: 1,000 at launch (Nov 2010), Palm\HP WebOS: 1,000 (Jan 2010), Blackberry: 15,000
The larger the apps store, the more likely you are to find the specific app that you’re looking for.


Network Size - If you’re concerned about charges when calling outside your network, you will likely want to know who has the biggest network. According to Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, there are over 180 facilities-based wireless providers in the U.S.

Top 4 are:
Verizon: 93.2 million, AT&T 92.8 million, Sprint: 48 million, T-Mobile: 38.5 million

There you have it. Make a list, check it more than twice, and really look at the pros and cons of what you want out of your carrier, device, OS, and network size.