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Product Survey: Mobiles & Smartphones
Face it: the majority of us are hooked on our mobiles. Whether it's for business or pleasure, few people can do without one of these little devices nearby. With so many models out there fighting for our attention, we look at some of the best of the bunch.
Florence Legrand
Updated: 2008-12-31
Updated: 2008-12-31
Our Tests
Everybody's got their own idea of what makes a perfect phone, and there are all sorts of ways of striking the balance between looks and performance.
Nevertheless, there are a handful of criteria that we look for in all the phones that we test:
• Sound Quality--Are calls clear? How do they sound for the other party? And what about in a noisy environment?
• Interface--Are the menus easy to use? How long does it take to configure the phone?
• Multimedia--There's a lot to look at here: the camera, video quality, sound on the speakers and/or headphones ...
• Internet--More and more phones can connect to the Internet, but how easy is it so set up? Is browsing on the small screen a pain or a pleasure?
Nevertheless, there are a handful of criteria that we look for in all the phones that we test:
• Sound Quality--Are calls clear? How do they sound for the other party? And what about in a noisy environment?
• Interface--Are the menus easy to use? How long does it take to configure the phone?
• Multimedia--There's a lot to look at here: the camera, video quality, sound on the speakers and/or headphones ...
• Internet--More and more phones can connect to the Internet, but how easy is it so set up? Is browsing on the small screen a pain or a pleasure?
No longer content to offer us just a telephone, manufacturers now offer a whole range of handsets that allow you to stay constantly connected--if that's what you want to do.
From technologies as simple and well-known as SMS right through the latest multimedia services available on cutting-edge phones, it's been obvious for a long time that mobiles are now used for a lot more than placing and receiving calls.
And the number of services is only set to rise, with the arrival of more and more video-based services exploiting the greater bandwidth increasingly available to regular consumers.
One Device, Many Functions
This explosion of functions has lead to a diversification in the market, with different categories of products offering different features.
We've called this survey 'Mobiles & Smartphones' to indicate one of the biggest divides: the distinction between consumer-orientated mobile phones on the one hand and more feature-rich smartphones on the other that allow busy professionals to organize themselves using many of the same applications as can be found on a PDA.
As with everything else, though, there are good products and not-so-good ones. Manufacturers are all too aware of the mobile's status as a must-have item, and are often guilty of stashing a sub-quality phone in a swish case.
One A Year?
Although it's not always obvious to users subscribing to calling plans with 'free' phones, mobiles are actually expensive pieces of hardware, subsidised by the cost of your plan over 12, 18 or even 24 months.
This cycle can make it easy to think of throwing your phone away once a year as a natural part of the process, but--fortuantely--more and more manufacturers are implementing recycling programs to deal with the sometimes complicated problem of handling the waste materials found inside a modern mobile.
