Tech: 5 Important Things to Look out for When Getting a New Smartphone

So the new year has come and you find yourself asking this question: should I get myself a new phone this year? And if so, what are the things that I should be looking out for when I am out to get a new one? In theory, these things are pretty simple to answer. But because of the wide range of different handsets available in the market today, you may find yourself in a bit of a dilemma just because there's so many smartphones to choose from. Gone are the days of just choosing between a few phone makers (Nokia, Sony, Samsung) because right now, phone manufacturers from all over the globe are starting to get worldwide recognition such as the ones from China and India. So without further adieu, here are just some of the important factors to consider when choosing a new smartphone.

5. RAM

Pictured: RAM.

For those who are not familiar with the term, RAM stands for Random Access Memory. This is simply where your phone's recent activity data are stored, because one way or another, your may need to access an app or an activity and go back to a certain point without ever having to start all over again. This is probably one of the most important component of any smartphone, more important than the number of cores it has or the type of processor the phone is being ran on. The bigger your phone's RAM is, the faster is the response you will get from the apps you would want to access with minimal problems such as lagging. Nowadays smartphone's RAM vary from as low as 256MB to as large as 2GB.

4. SCREEN

Sometime between the mid 2000's phone manufacturers had the idea of bulking up phones to make them more functional instead of going with the "small and compact" trend. This has proven to be a good point. From then on smartphones have gone from the usual 3 inches screen to 5 inches and even up to 7 inches hybrids called "phablets", the offspring of a smartphone and a tablet. Screen resolutions also have changed drastically from the usual LCD screen to TFT, IPS, AMOLED giving high resolution and definition for these phones making them a good fit for watching movies and other videos anytime, anywhere. Screen strength also improved with the emergence of the Gorilla and Dragontail glass which have been proven to be tough and effective especially for those smartphones that are made for gaming on the go.

3. Storage

Though majority of the smartphones nowadays opt for having an option for SD card external storage, there are still smartphones that do not have these feature and instead opting to go for an internal memory storage right off the bat. This fact is true for smartphones such as the ever famous iPhone, the Motorola Moto X, Asus Google Nexus 7 and other high end phones. Phones with internal storage vary from 16-32GB of data storage, depending on the model while those phones that accepts external memory allows a 32GB SD card to be inserted for data storage.

2. Battery Life

Smartphone's Achilles

No matter how fast or responsive a smartphone may be, it will always have a downside. And that downside is the phone's battery life. Because smartphones handle more tasks such as opening and closing apps, connecting to the internet, making calls, video/music playback and maintaining screen resolution, smartphone batteries usually get drained very easily, even those that promise a longer battery life. However, there are a lot of options that you can choose to prolong battery life such as having a powerbank, bringing a portable charger, and other battery saving apps available in the market or better yet, manually close unused apps in your phone.

1. Price

Pictured: Relatively Similar Smartphones with Different Price Range

This factor of course is the main hurdle in the sale of smartphones nowadays. Because of the kind of technology that has been placed on these gadgets, manufacturers (especially the famous ones) do not hold back on the pricing of their products. This is where small time manufacturers such as the ones from China and India come into play. These manufacturers can build smartphones with relatively similar features with the high end phones while putting a little emphasis on little details such as durability (some units are built from ordinary plastic), sound quality (loudspeaker and headphone mismatch) and screen size/resolution/quality. RAM size is also a determining factor when it comes to price but you can always choose to go for a phone with minimal RAM size (512MB-1GB) and still save a little dime.

So there you go folks. Those are just some of the little things that you have to check out when it comes to getting a new smartphone. Though sometimes you may not get the best of both worlds (e.g. high RAM but weak battery life or good sound quality but poor video resolution), it is ideal to go for something that will surely get the job that you want done without sacrificing most of the factors mentioned above. How about you guys? Are there more factors that I missed that you think might be important for those who are about to get their new phones? Don't be afraid to comment below and of course share it with your friends. Good luck!