How to spot a mobile phone
LONDON, July 26 — About to purchase your next phone but don’t know how to tell the difference between a mobile phone and a smartphone? This handy guide will help you weed out the “dumb” phones from the high-powered superphones.
The mobile phone landscape has changed dramatically over the last five years or so as the smartphone has grown to command a majority of the mobile market in many countries around the globe.
Do you use a smartphone, feature phone or mobile phone? — Picture courtesy of shutterstock.comBut what exactly is a smartphone and how is it different from the common mobile phone or a feature phone?
“As a rule of thumb, the best way to differentiate the three groups is to keep in mind its features and, therefore, cost. If a phone just makes a phone call, sends a text message and offers very little else, it’s a mobile phone. If it offers a high-megapixel camera, enables you to edit Microsoft Office documents and photos then it’s a smartphone. And anywhere in between is probably a feature phone,” explains Nokia in a post on its Conversations blog.
How to spot a smartphone from a mobile phone:
Mobile phones
The primary “raison d’etre” of a mobile phone (commonly referred to as a “dumb” phone) is to make calls and send texts. These affordable phones may be a dying breed in some developed countries but they remain popular in places such as Africa and India due to their outstanding battery life, durable design and rock bottom (often contract-free) price.
Feature phones
Feature phones lay somewhere between a mobile phone and a smartphone. They are often designed around one or more stand-out features: the ability to capture high-res images, listen to music with enhanced sound quality, charge via a built-in solar panel or connect to social networks via built-in apps. As technology advances feature phones have become more and more like smartphones, with a growing set of features. You can typically purchase a feature phone for between US$0 to US$99 (RM300) on a two-year contract.
Smartphones
Smartphones offer cutting-edge technology and high-end computer-like features with a flashy price tag to match. A smartphone typically runs on an advanced computing platform aka a mobile operating system (common examples include Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android OS and Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS). Other typical smartphone features include Internet connectivity via WiFi and 3G or 4G, a dual or quad-core processor, a range of downloadable apps, a high-res camera and built in GPS. At launch, flagship smartphones such as the Galaxy S III or the iPhone 4S can run upwards of US$299 on a two-year contract. — AFP-Relaxnews
