Choosing your New Mobile Phone

So you're buying a phone - and you're definitely spoilt for choice these days. With hundreds of phones from all ends of the market flooding the market, even after screening out phones outside your price range, there's still a lot of phones to choose from. Here are a few tips that should apply to any mobile phone user when choosing their phone.

1. SMSing and email.
Let's start with the most obvious feature that any phone should have: simple text messaging. Email is included in most phones these days, although not strictly necessary; I never use my phone for emailing. But if you're a heavy user, you'll probably want this on your phone.

2. Speakerphone and headset.
I once decided against buying a phone because of the lack of speakerphone. If you're doing something that requires both your hands, speakerphone is a great option for comfortably carrying on a long phone conversation. In the same vein, if your phone can use bluetooth headsets, it makes conversations much easier.

3. Accessories.
Every mobile phone user has little tasks that they wouldn't mind their phones doing. What sort of accessories do your different choices have available? Does any phone have an accessory that would make your life much easier? This might take some research, but the end results can make your life much easier.

4. Camera.
I'll bet you were expecting this somewhere. Lot's of mobile phone users use their phones for taking photos these days, and let's not forget picture messaging. Personally, I don't use my mobile phone for taking many photos, and I'm happy with my iPhone's substandard camera - but you might be different, and make sure to check that your phone's camera feature is up to what you want. If you're big on your camera functions, you might also want your phone to have a decent flash feature, and good video capabilities - my SE K800i took good photos, but pretty bad videos.

5. Internet browser, WiFi.
This might not have been nearly as important a while ago, but after the iPhone, the internet is quickly becoming more and more important for mobile phones. Does your phone have a decent web browser? (As long as it can support Opera Mini, you should be fine). Does it have WiFi? Not many older phones do, so this could be an important feature.

6. Other multimedia features.
Do you want your phone to play mp3s? If so, you could look for a deal with a nice memory card. Radio addict? Pick a phone that supports FM tuning.

7. Bluetooth and infrared.
While infrared is not used much in mobile phones these days, bluetooth is a must, and should come along with almost every new phone. Not only can you send and receive files, but bluetooth is also necessary to use the wireless headsets that I mentioned earlier. The glaring exception to bluetooth is the iPhone, which only allows bluetooth use for these headsets and not to send/receive files - but it makes up for it in so many other areas that one can overlook this.

These tips should hopefully get you on the road to choosing a phone that you'll be happy with.