Joon’s Tech Corner: Choosing a smartphone

November 28, 2011

News

Screen shot 2011-11-08 at 4.14.13 PM — Photo by Rohan Lewis

I remember back in the day when I thought phones with slide-out keyboards were so cool. But after having bought an iPhone last summer, I cannot believe I used to live with a phone that only had a keyboard and couldn’t even connect to the Internet.

There are a lot of choices out there when choosing a smartphone today. Of course there is the easy option: Apple’s iPhone. You could, alternatively, opt to go with a smartphone running the Android operating system. Examples include the Motorola Droid 2 or the HTC Evo 3D. The only other option available in the U.S. is a phone running Windows Phone 7, which is an up-and-coming operating system.

So what do you need to know about each of these when making your decision?

Software
The iPhone is the most popular phone in the world and, because of this, it has the most applications on the platform. The massive quantity of apps practically allows the phone to do anything you want. In addition, the iOS software running on the iPhone is the most user-intuitive operating system on a phone, making it by far the easiest to use right out of the box.

To put it simply, Android is Google’s iOS. Google releases this operating system to manufacturers, such as HTC, Motorola and Samsung, and lets them create phones for their operating systems. As a result of this open source production model, there are many choices available when choosing an Android phone. Screen sizes can range from 3.5 inches to 4.5 inches, keyboards can slide out or flip out and cameras can even support 3-D pictures and video.

Windows Phone 7 is the new kid on the block in terms of operating systems for phones. Microsoft released it last year with a really clean interface called Metro UI, which is also coming on Windows 8 for your PC. While the software does not have as many apps for its phones as iOS and Android, it is slowly picking up speed in the smartphone industry.

Hardware
With Android, there are a lot of choices for phones. In addition, Android phones have better specifications. These specs contribute to a generally faster phone on paper. The actual speed of your phone really depends on the phone’s manufacturer.

Windows 7 is the same as Android phones in terms of hardware. While there are even more choices, the phones may or may not give you a better experience.

With the iPhone, there are only two choices for color (black and white), and you do not get much choice in memory space. While there are fewer choices, the iPhone’s hardware and software work better together than that of most Android phones, so you may get a faster phone.

The ultimate question is, iPhone, Android or Windows Phone? That decision is up to you. Would you rather go with the phone that offers the most applications and most user-friendly interface? Or would you prefer to go with a Windows 7 or Android phone where you have choice in what phone you get, generally have stronger internal power and have the option to do whatever you want to the phone because it’s open source?