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Mobile Phones - Buying Guide
Plan to buy a Mobile Phone? This straight forward buying guide will help you find theright mobile.
Index
Introduction to buying a mobile phoneMobile TariffsMobile Phone Style3G – Third generation Mobile PhonesBattery LifeAdditional FeaturesMobile Phone GamesWAPGSMPredictive TextBluetoothMobile Phone AccessoriesMobile Phone BrandsTop Mobile Phone SearchesUseful Websites
Introduction to buying a mobile phone
The Mobile Phone is now an every day consumer item. In many developed markets everyadult now has at least one mobile phone with youth culture adopting them as the musthave gadget or fashion accessory. One thing that can’t be denied is that they are now partof every day life, essential for work and play and that technology has moved on to offer ahuge variety of mobile phone products and gadgets. This buying guide will help youthink about what you want to buy and explain some of the key features you shouldunderstand and consider in your next mobile phone purchase. You should also use thevast amount of mobile phone reviews that are available on the web to see what other consumers think about each model.The first step is to sit down and think very carefully about what you want the phone for.Is it going to be used for work calls where you want maximum batter life and a goodcontract for high volume every day use to landlines and various networks. Alternatively itmay be for personal use, a fashion accessory that needs to look cool and have all thelatest gadgets and functions so you can wow your friends. Make sure you reallyunderstand what you are buying the phone for and how you will use it to help make theright choice. Just going out to buy a cheap mobile phone could end up very expensiveindeed.
Mobile Tariffs
This can be a complex and overwhelming area to consider when purchasing a phone butultimately it will determine how expensive your phone purchase will be. Ideally you willunderstand how you use your phone, for example do you call other mobile phonenetworks often, use your phone mostly in the week at peak times, make overseas calls or send lots of text messages. This data will help you determine what mobile phone deal isright for you? There are two types of mobile phone package to consider – Contract – Contract deals are the most popular. The user will commit to a minimum of 12months at an agreed monthly fee. This will include a number of free calls and textmessages and often with additional incentives like cash back, free gift or free handsetinsurance. However be very careful to examine the full detail of the contracts. For 
 
example you may take a low monthly deal and only get 50 minutes a month of free callsto landline phones. If you then go over that time limit and make lots of calls to other mobiles you may end up paying heavy premium rates. The good news for consumers isthat the major mobile networks are very competitive in saturated markets and there isendless choice, just take time to find the best deal for your requirements. You also get alarge range of all the latest mobile phones, often for free or at very cheap prices as thenetworks make more from these longer term contract deals.Pay As You Go or PAYG – These deals are ideal for people who just want to pay for whatthey use. It is essentially a prepay system and is easily topped up when ever you needmore credit. The downside is that you usually get a more limited choice of phones, oftenneed to pay a fee for the phone, although still subsidised and the calls will be moreexpensive than on a contract deal. This is a popular choice for students or parents buying phones for their children where they wish to manage the budget.Sim Free – it is still possible to buy a mobile phone without a contract or PAYG deal in place. As these won’t have the Sim cards are they are often called Sim Free phones. Themodern mobile phone is a small box of high tech gadgetry and buying the newest modelswith out a contract or PAYG can cost you more than £400. The mobile phone networkssubsidise the cost of the hardware with the profits they make from
Mobile Phone Style
Phones have come a long way since the first models were launched. Talk to mobile phoneusers as they will roll off their preferences. From Silver mobile phones to ultra slimmobile phones or flip mobile phones to pink mobile phones. Mobile phones with 2 mega pixel digital cameras or mobile phones loaded up with java games. Mobile phones haveeven started to cross over into fashion and mobile computing with introductions of models like the LG chocolate mobile phone or the Blackberry. Many people like thereliable and solid performance of Nokia mobile phones, the current market leadingmanufacturer where as other like the wafer thin and slim Motorola Razr range. Samsunghave come to the market in a big way bringing technically enhanced displays and strongstyling. Finally you had the marriage of former mobile phone producer Ericsson and theelectronics giant Sony to produce the Sony Ericsson phones. The new range includes theWalkman branded media player giving them a competitive edge in the market. One thingthat is clear is that a mobile phone today can be your personal organiser, digital camera,MP3 player or portable radio. It is an accessory that says a lot about the person using itand continues to evolve at an astonishing rate. If you are about to buy a mobile phone it’soften a lifestyle statement.
3G – Third generation Mobile Phones
It came in a storm when mobile phone networks paid billions to get new licences for thirdgeneration or 3g mobile networks. This was the advent of high quality data streamingallowing Mobile phone users to get access to content and services you’d only expect tosee on computers. The launch wasn’t quite up to the hype but all mobile operators nowoffer enhanced services and new networks like Three (3) provide a lot of additionalcontent and services with popular TV shows, sport and video games now coming online.These services vary depending on what and who you are using so make sure youinvestigate this is you want to use your mobile phone to its maximum capacity. Alsomake sure you fully understand any additional charges for using these services.
Battery Life
This does vary by model but most modern mobile phones will now give you anythingfrom 40 – 100 hours. It is still important to give your battery a full 24 hour+ charge whenyou take the phone out of the box and obviously the batter will suffer wear over time. Itwill also depend on how you use your phone. If you just send lots of text messages you
 
can expect batteries to need charging infrequently. However lengthy calls and heavy useof rich media will see you needing to charge every other day. It is important to run batteries down occasionally and then give a full charge. Partially charging every nightmay speed up the battery degradation.
Additional Features
Media players – the latest mobile phones usually have some form of media player. Thisallows you to store your images, video clips and music. Motorola have made a feature of giving phones a music maker application where as Sony Ericsson provide the walkman branded media player for your multimedia requirements. Nokia in particular have made FM radio standard on many of their handsets. The qualityis good but like all radio you need access to good clear signals for clear transmission. Itcan be very frustrating trying to use this on trains for example.One of the most popular innovations for mobile phones over the last few years has beenthe addition of a digital camera function on the handset. Users have quickly taken tosending MMS (Multimedia Messages) and recording short video footage of friends andfamily. The video quality is still usually very low and storage capacity is very limited,often only allowing 10 – 15 second clips but this is constantly improving. A Nokia N95 provides a large LCD display, 5 mega pixel digital camera, wireless connectivity, web browser, MP3 Player and GPS navigation functionality.
Mobile Phone Games
All mobiles come with a selection of games and things have moved on from classics likesnake which was initially installed on every Nokia phone. You will often see commuters passing the time of a long trip whilst playing a round of golf or a game of poker.Importantly you can now also download games or subscribe to services so if this issomething important to you then make sure you investigate what your phone hasinstalled.
WAP
This is the term that refers to the technology that allows smaller web pages for internetaccess on a mobile phone.
GSM
 The Global System for Mobile. This refers to the frequency bands used around the world.A tri-band mobile phone will allow you to use it in most regions around the world. Morerecently quad-band phones are available to cover all four existing frequencies for use anywhere in the world.
Predictive Text
 This is a common tool that allows the phone to interpret the words you are typing by asingle touch rather than multiple tapping of keys to select the correct letter. Once you arefamiliar with it you will find it accurate and quicker than normal text messaging.
Bluetooth
 A technology used to connect electronic devices wirelessly. This can prove very useful if you need to connect your phone to a laptop.
Mobile Phone Ringtones
All mobile phones come with a number of free ring tones on the phone. Most phones willnow come with Polyphonic capabilities providing high quality sounding music.Downloading ringtones is now common and available from numerous websites. You can
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ay111

nice one ... thanks

reply01 / 31 / 2010
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