5 Tips for Buying a New Smartphone

It’s official: you’ve had it with your dinosaur clam-shell phone and can’t tolerate not being able to play Words With Friends while waiting for the subway. You’re buying a smartphone.

Fortunately the capitalism that fostered the development of such devices has also led to a proliferation of choices. Blackberry, iPhone or Android? Galaxy, HTC or Storm? AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile?

Even if you have taken the plunge and are considering changing your phone or service, the range of choices can be daunting. Some are even arguing for less models and greater simplicity.

But simplicity isn’t the total answer. People have different needs and selection can be a good thing. Arguably this can be geographically determined, but it’s more likely a function of your own lifestyle, consumption and personal preferences.

To make the choice a bit easier, we’ve outlined some key things to consider.

Five Tips For Buying a Smartphone

1: How important are apps to you? 
This should be your top consideration: why else buy a smartphone if you don’t care about the apps? Unfortunately there isn’t an easy answer to which platform provides the best offering, as this isn’t always a (pardon the pun) apples-to-apples comparison. For example, while we know that Nokia’s Ovi Store has over 50K apps and the Android Market has over 200K apps, we only know that RIM’s BlackBerry App World boasts roughly 3M downloads per day. And sadly, HP’s Palm App Catalog only provides 4K apps running on the webOS and not the PalmOS, as one might expect. Rivaling Palm in the version snafu category, Microsoft launched its Windows Marketplace for Mobile in October 2009 and then proceeded to launch a separate store, Windows Phone Marketplace, for all Windows Mobile 7 versions and newer. 

Takeaway: if app selection is of primary importance to you, iPhone or Android is likely your best bet.

2: How tied are you to a given network provider? 

One of the most critical elements is your service provider. Are you locked into a contract? Devoted to one device-maker? iPhone ties you to Verizon or AT&T, so if you are a die-hard Apple user, that’s your choice. Also be sure to check out what geographies the network providers cover – most offer this right on their own websites, or you can go cross-carrier with nifty little tools like this.

Takeaway: Make sure you have coverage for both your device and your physical location before pulling the trigger.

3: What do your friends use? 

Sometimes you can get deals on “friend to friend” calls within the same network – so if your family uses AT&T and you plan on calling them the most, that may swing your choice.  Also, if you’re a mobile gamer, note that some apps aren’t multi-platform: we were shocked to learn that the ridiculously popular Farmville offers a mobile version only for the Apple OS, for example – so you won’t get any help harvesting from your Droid friends, for example

4: What is your phone lifetime attention span? 

 As The Next Web piece outlines, you’ll get less variety with the iPhone, which releases a new model roughly every 1-2 years, but the benefit is control: Apple can issue ongoing fixes to the OS and invest more time in development to ensure its models get things right. The downside is waiting a while until you can upgrade to a newer model.

Takeaway: If you are a loyalist, go for the iPhone. If you have smartphone ADD, go with an Android or Blackberry.

5: How much of an idealist are you? There are basically two different paths for you to choose from: a curated eco-system like Apple (iPhone), RIM (Blackberry) or a more open-minded approach, in the form of Android – any app gets published and a huge variety of manufacturers/devices to pick from.

Takeaway: Decide how much your ideals influence your lifestyle.