Buying tips good mobile phones

subscribers around the world and highly competitive market for mobile handset manufacturers, there has been lot of features added to mobile handsets in the recent times. This makes the buyers difficult to chose the correct handset.

Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, LG and Samsung, the bigger players in this arena, is launching exciting and innovative new handsets literally every second day in the markets aimed at accommodating even the most frugal of wallets. Now the question is which is the best handset suited for me?

Today, even the cheapest models boast of features like FM radio, MMS capabilities, camera and video recording and decent memory sizes. Buying a mobile has become a complicated task with the new buyers trying to understand these features.
An important aspect that one needs to consider is the list of features and the price at which it is offered.

• Budget handsets: This category is the starting range of all handsets companies and basic features in this would be FM radio, MMS, speaker phone, good phone book capacity. Most of them have color screen and some of them even offer VGA cameras. The price range would be up to Rs 5000 /-. Few phones in this category are Nokia 6070 and 6080, Sony Ericsson K310i and K320i, Motorola W220

• In the second category the features to expect are Camera, FM Radio, Playback of Compressed Music Formats like MP3, Enhanced MMS Capabilities, WAP Broswer,GPRS, Web Browser, GSM Tri-Band Capability, GSM Modem, Blue tooth Connectivity,USB PC Connectivity, Mobile Games, Expandable external memory.Internal Memory - At least 8MB. There are a variety of handsets in this area including the Walkman phones from Sony Ericsson. Price range- Rs 5000-10000/-. Phones in this category include Nokia 5200, 5300, 6233, Sony Ericsson K750i, W300i, Z550i, W200i, LG KG800, Moto RAZR, Moto SLVR L7, Samsung X700, LG Chocolate.

• The third category is the upper end and features to expect in this are Large Screen. Size, Enhanced Camera (2-3 MP), Stereo FM Radio, Playback of Compressed Music Formats like MP3, Enhanced MMS Capabilities,WAP Browser, GPRS/EDGE, Web Browser, GSM Tri-Band Capability, GSM Modem, Blue tooth Connectivity, USB PC Connectivity, Mobile Games, Expandable external memory (card provided in the box). Phones can come under this category are Nokia N70, N72, N73, 6270, Sony Ericsson Z710i, W710, W810i, K790i, W700i, W830i, Moto KRZR, ROKR E6.

• The next category is the premium segment which is Rs 20000/- and above. The feature to be expected in this category include Large Screen, Size/Touchscreen, Enhanced Camera(3MP or more), FM Radio Playback of Compressed Music Formats like MP3, Enhanced MMS Capabilities, WAP Browser, GPRS/EDGE/Wi-Fi/3G, Web Browser, GSM Tri-Band Capability, GSM Modem, USB PC Connectivity, Mobile Games, Expandable external memory with card provided in the box. The prominent phones in this category are N90, N92, N93i, N95, Sony Ericsson W880i, W850i, W950i and models from O2.

When you plan to purchase a mobile phone, the basic and useful features, apart from phone voice clarity, I would recommend are;

Good screen display with 262K colors, screen size may vary from phone to phone, but go for a good display.

Camera is available in most of the handsets and currently 2MP is most common, unless you are going for a budget handset. 1.3 MP is also preferable if you are not interested to shoot some pictures.

Currently most of the handsets are having music player and if your priority is music, then definitely go for Walkman models from Sony Ericsson, they are worth.

Other features include GPRS, Web Browser (EDGE and Wi-Fi if you are an internet geek), blue tooth, MMS and expandable memory (this is one of the thing I give more importance) with card if available.

In the second catagory I would recommend Nokia 5300, W300i and W200i which are having decent camera and good music player. In the upper segment, which is the most competieve in market, there are quite a few models which include 5-6 models of Sony Ericsson Walkman and also the N series from Nokia.

So next time you plan to get a new handset check out the features it has to offer and the price.