Buying new mobile

Mobiles are available with number of features today. Depending upon the requirement a mobile phone should be purchased. Before you go to buy a new piece, go through the following tips:

Display screen

Look for a phone with a TFT (thin film transistor) or Active Matrix screen which provides a wider viewing angle compared to the traditional passive LCD technology. For playing games, watching videos, TFT screens are must. Few more considerations should be the size, resolution and no. of colours.

Sound

Sound should be loud but not noisy. Polyphonic, MIDI, MP3, WAV are the types that mobiles play. Polyphonic, MIDI are standard, however people love MP3 songs to be played as their mobile phone's ringtone!

Camera

Use a camera phone to take spontaneous pictures or even video clips. Nowdays phones have 1 Mega Pixel / 1.3 Mega Pixel cameras while earlier it was lower resolution. The higher end phones have started offering 3.2 Mega Pixel cameras. A few even offer 5.0 megapixel camera.

Connectivity

GPRS/EDGE allow you to connect to internet and are preferred if you are mostly connected to internet. A datacable, bluetooth or infrared capability allows you to browse internet on a computer. It also allows you to exchange images, videos, music files with computer or other handsets.

Network Band

GSM phones worldwide work in 3 bands - 900, 1800 & 1900 (these numbers refer to frequency ranges in MHz). If you plan to take & use your mobile abroad, make sure you get a tri-band phone (one which can operate in all the three bands). Some phones have also started offering the WCDMA (the future of the GSM network) 2100 band.

Multimedia Features

While travelling FM radio or music player can help you cut the time. An external attachment like a headphone is required to connect to the radio. Advanced models can stream videos too!

Internal Memory

Internal memory should be reasonably good. It should be enough to carry messages. If it is full you wont be able to receive further messages unless you make sufficient space in it or change the memory location.

Expandable Memory Slot

Memory should be considered if you plan to use it as a multimedia device.Memory cards (Multi-media cards, RS-MMC Cards, Memory Stick / MS Pro) come in denominations of 128 MB, 256 MB, 512 MB, 1 GB and 2 GB. Some advanced models supports 8 GB cards as well.

Java Enabled

Check if your phone is java enabled as java enabled phones are able to run a number of games and applications.

Last but not the Least

Check for an efficient Organiser / Alarm application, Predictive Text Messaging (T9 system), and good battery life.