You want to make sure that your money is well spent, as well as knowing that you're going to be satisfied with your purchase. The trick to getting a great new phone is knowing how to read the spec sheet on a mobile, and more specifically, knowing what you should be looking for.
All mobiles come with spec sheets, which detail the various features and specifications of the phone. The kinds of specs that you're looking for depend on what kind of phone you need. Today we're looking at various classes of mobile, and telling you what kind of specs you should be getting for your money. So, if you're in the process of mobile shopping, here's what you should be looking for...
Top End Mobiles
Obviously, top end mobiles are going to have some serious specs. You're looking for a screen that's around five inches, which is common on most top end phones. You also want a lot of processing power or CPU, a minimum of about 1.5 GHz (or 1500 MHz, it means the same thing). RAM also needs to be pretty high, over 1 GB, to give you the kind of responsiveness that you're looking for.When it comes to internal memory, that's more of a question of personal choice, since it will depend on how much data you're planning to keep on your phone, but the minimum really should be 16 GB on a top or the range mobile.
The majority of top end phones are still getting the standard 8 MP camera, though there are a few models that have higher resolution 13.7 MP cams, so you might want to watch out for that. And be aware that many top of the line devices have two cameras, in which case the rear facing camera will be the high resolution one.
It's rare that a front facing camera gets anything over around 2 MP, since it's used more for video calling than picture taking. Finally, 4G capability is pretty standard now too. Price wise, you're looking at spending over five hundred pounds on a good quality, top end phone. As for models, the latest big releases right now are the Samsung Galaxy S4, the Sony Xperia Z, the Blackberry Z10 and the Nokia Lumia 925.
Business Phones
In most cases the specs for business phones are identical to those for top end devices, and most top of the line phones will make good business phones. However, there are a couple of extra things that you might want to look for.The first is scheduling ability, some models, such as the HTC One and the iPhone 5 simply have better scheduling and agenda software than other models, making them a clear choice for business users. Also, look for models that have Micro SD card slots, which will make it easy to expand internal memory as well as to move data between your phone and other devices.
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Mid-Range Mobiles
In the middle of the market you're still going to be looking for some good specs, but you're going to have to sacrifice a little to get the lower price tag. Screen size should be between four and four and a half inches here. Your processor should be around 1 GHz, but try to go for a dual core processor for a little more speed and reliability.Your RAM is going to be around the 1 GB mark, and internal memory will vary between 8 GB and 16 GB. Cameras are still going to be around 8 MP, though some mid-market models are still getting the old 5 MP cameras, and these tend not to make a good buy.
Anything you can get on top of these basic specs is just an added bonus, although there are more and more mid-market models that are coming with 4G capability, just look for the suffix LTE after the model name to indicate that the phone can connect to a 4G mobile data network.
Prices in the middle of the market do vary quite widely, and you can pay anywhere from about two hundred to around three hundred and fifty pounds for a solid mid-range phone. If you're looking for model recommendations, then there are a couple of great mid-range models.
The Samsung Galaxy S2 meets all the above criteria and retails at the lower end of the mid-market budget. The LG Nexus 4 is at the upper end of the budget, but does have some impressive specs, beating most of the minimum requirements that you're looking for.
Budget Phones
There are more and more budget smart phones coming onto the market every day. However, you do need to be extremely careful that you're not sacrificing too many features and too much performance to get a bargain phone.The below specs really are the minimum that you should accept for a budget phone in order to get decent performance and to avoid your mobile lagging, crashing, freezing, or being unable to run recent software versions. Screen size needs to be above three inches, and processing power should be at least 800 MHz. RAM shouldn't go below 512 MB, and internal memory should go below 2 GB.
When it comes to cameras, anything above 3 MP should be fine, but you're not going to find great camera quality in a budget smart phone. Look to be paying under a hundred and fifty pounds for a decent budget model.
There are a few great budget buys out there though. Either the Huawei Ascend W1 (a Windows phone) or the Huawei Ascend G330 (an Android phone) will make a good buy. And the lower end Sony Xperia models are good buys too, look particularly at the Xperia Miro or Xperia Tipo for bargain prices.
Sam JonesAbout the Author:
Sam Jones was looking for good value business phones so decided to shop around.