How to pick the perfect smartphone… for you!

Look at your smartphone, now back to me, chances are if you’re reading this – you’re thinking about replacing your or a friend’s smartphone… and I’m here to tell you – you came to the right place!

Well, the smartphone market has gained a lot of ground since 2007 with the introduction of the first iPhone. It wasn’t necessary the first smartphone per-say, but it was a game changer for the time.

Today, mid-range smartphones are getting a lot better, and high-end smartphones are just getting some incremental updates – nothing ground breaking (although rumor has it, this is the year of the “foldable screen” smartphone – but only time will tell).

Getting to our main subject – how do I choose the best smartphone for me? You may be a student, business man or woman, concerning parent or well… anyone.

Each of you have different expectations from your smartphone and different desires, but all of them can be broken down to 6 distinct categories:

1. Budget.

2. Screen size & Resolution.

3. Performance.

4. Battery life.

5. Camera.

6. Operating system.

Budget:

First and foremost - Money money money…. MONEY! Well, you need to know how much you want to spend on your brand new shiny center of your information. The range differs from 50$ to 900$. Try to fix this one first before trying to see your different options, this criterion will probably create a significant smaller range of options for you to choose from.

The average lifespan of a smartphone is 2-4 years, so make your choice accordingly.

Screen size:

For now, this category will determine the size of your smartphone – screen size is measured by the diagonal length of the screen (without the smartphone body).

For the time being - the market norm is just around 5.2”. This is not the right fit for everyone, but it’s a good compromise between available size in your pocket and comfortable media consumption.

If you want anything high end in a smaller form factor – I like the Sony compact line or the non-Plus iPhone, which are around 4.5”-4.7”.

Fair warning: Choose your screen carefully – size matter! Size is the difference between single hand and 2 hands needed to handle the device.

With the screen size comes the resolution, like on TVs the resolution is the number of pixels on the width dimension of the screen and the number of pixels on the height dimension of the screen. You have a variety of resolutions ranging from HD (1280X720) AKA 720p, qHD (960X540), FHD (1920X1080) AKA 1080p, 2K (2048X???), 4K or QHD (3840X2160) AKA 2160p.

All those numbers come out as PPI on your screen – Pixels Per Inch.

Another Fair warning: Don’t let resolution fool you, most people will be great with 1080p screens of up to 5.5”, so please don’t pay more than you need to just because of the hype.

There are other factors here like screen technology, screen to body ratio etc. but I choose not to cover them yet as I think I’ve rambled enough for now.

A good advice: Not all variants of screen technology is outdoor friendly, some screens are very hard to read on a sunny day, so if you’re more of an “outdoorsy” type – check it out before you buy!

Performance:

Are you going to play hardcore games with your smartphone?

Do you feel frustrated if the apps aren’t loading fast enough? Well, you came to the right category.

For the time I uploaded this story, the average consumer will be OK with at least 2GB of internal memory, also known as RAM, and some kind of advanced processor – so look for those specifications in your next smartphone.

If you’re a hardcore gamer or speed-nut, you will probably go with the high-end smartphone where you’ll probably have 4 plus GB of RAM and the best silicon available, so just ignore this section.

Battery life:

The corner stone of any “wall hugger”. If you seem to constantly try to find an outlet to charge your phone, well, this section is important for you.

Most of the average consumers with regular usage won’t make it through a day without charging. Now most of you are saying “No! that is not true, my new smartphone is awesome and makes it through the day like a champ!” well that’s probably true! But it just in the first few weeks as you’ll download more apps, strain the smartphones battery as far as you can, and then you’ll start to notice it’s wall hugging time!

Battery capacity diminish over time, it’s just the way it is right now.

But don’t worry, if this one is top priority you just need to read the specification and see:

• Choose the smartphone without the best processor – if you don’t know what’s a good processor, that’s cool – the first thing that usually the 400$ plus smartphone has a mid to high-end processor, and the best ones are 700$ plus.

• Choose the smartphone with a large battery – 2800mah or more.

• You take photos or videos? That’s going to cost you some battery life, and that’s OK!

• Large screen size means large battery, even though the screen takes more power – the battery life is better (usually).

To compare battery life, I really like to go to gsmarena.com, they have a standardized test to see what’s the average battery life of different smartphones, check it out when you choose your next smartphone.

Camera:

Let’s start fast and painful – Mega pixels aren’t everything.

For the average smartphone user – 12-16MP are more than enough for everyday life. All of you who like to “pixel peep”, well – I wouldn’t recommend doing that with the current generation of smartphones as pictures while zoomed tend to be soft and lack of detail.

But as I said, Mega pixel count isn’t enough… It’s hard to choose between different smartphones with regards to their cameras, but don’t worry, someone have tested most of them, and if this category is important to you – go to dxomark.com, mobile section and watch the score table. Take a look at the in-depth review done there to the smartphone of your choice!

Simply put it – most smartphones cameras are terrible to shoot at night, great at good lighting conditions and take more than average videos.

Operating system (OS):

This is an easy one, the market has 3 major operating systems for smartphones: iOS (by Apple), Android (by Google) and Windows (by Microsoft). You also have the slow unrecognized little brother by Samsung – Tizen… but this one has a really small chunk of the smartphone market.

Each one has its pros and cons, and we will cover it on a different segment.

Simply put it:

Android is more open, the user has a great ability to tweak and change the feel of the OS. The updates are pushed via different manufacturers – what that means is that the hardware could stop getting updates up to 2 years back or as little as 6 months, it’s up to the manufacturer…also, every manufacturer has a different take on the Android OS. The OS is more vulnerable to bugs and malware.

iOS is a sort of “walled garden” with less ability to tweak and change the feel of the OS. It is updated regularly for at least 3 years old hardware. It is less vulnerable to bugs and malware.

Windows is also kind of “walled garden” with less ability to tweak and change the feel of the OS. It is updated regularly for at least 3 years old hardware. It is however vulnerable to bugs and malware.

Nothing is perfect, yet you need to choose carefully – I suggest to go to the store and try to feel the different OS prior to purchase. If you want anything longer than a store visit, try asking a friend for a spin on their brand new device and see what’s what.

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After all you’ve just read, what do you do with all that information? Well, arrange 1-6 as you see fit, from the most important to the less important one. Doing so, you’ll have a much clearer picture once you’ll have your smartphone options.

Next up is just making up your mind about screen size range, budget and OS. These 3 categories are easy to decide. Therefore, they should be the first one to tackle.

Done? OK, now you’ll have to see what’s new on the market – for this one you can head over to the sites of the main smartphone manufacturers: Apple, Sony, LG, Motorola, Microsoft, Samsung, Oneplus etc.

It’s better to have at least 3 options to decide from but no more than 5.

After you have your options, head over to gsmarena.com for the battery life and dxomark.com for the camera.

After all you’ve done so far you’ll probably have 2-3 options you’re trying to decide which one you should buy, the best solution is to ask a friend who has one if he is satisfied from his smartphone, next best thing is to go with your gut. From my experience, going to the store and asking the guys who work there never did good, they may be biased or miss informed about what you really need.

A few examples for different people:

For the tight on a budget battery and camera enthusiast – if you don’t mind the size (5.5” screen size) go for the Motorola Moto G4. The screen is great, the camera is OK and battery life is great.

If you want to splurge some more money for a fingerprint sensor and a better camera – you can have the Moto G4 Plus.

For the battery marathon kind, with a little money to spend – I would go for the Motorola Moto Z Play, the camera isn’t much and the build quality is OK, But BOY this one last a lot of time.

For the battery marathon kind, with money to spend and small phone requirements – this one isn’t a new one, but it’s really good – camera, screen, water proof and battery. The Sony Xperia Z5 compact.

For a great camera and a lot of $$$ - you have 2 choices for this one – the Google pixel or pixel XL, and the iPhone 7 Plus. Both great smartphones and cameras, but it’s going to cost you!

For the XL enthusiast – you can go for the LG V20 which is pretty enormous and has all the bells and whistles you can ask for.

Now go! Buy your new smartphone, have fun!