Motorola Droid Pro Review

 The Motorola Droid Pro is a model that runs Google's Android OS but has a design reminiscent of BlackBerrys.

It is one of a recent group of smartphones from Verizon Wireless catering to a more business-oriented market than their predecessors, sporting the ability to work overseas.

 

 It has a contract-free price tag of $480, dropping to $180 with a two-year service contract, though other retailers may offer it for even less.

BUILD & DESIGN

While many current Android devices are thinly veiled attempts to mimic the iPhone, the Droid Pro clearly has another target: the segment of business users that are mostly addicted to the BlackBerry and it's constant email access.

I'm not a BlackBerry user myself, but I am a member of the demographic that must have a keyboard, preferably in a one-piece design like this. So I came into this review curious about the Droid Pro, both because of it's slightly unusual design, and because it seemed to have the qualities I look for in a smartphone: a great spec sheet, simple design, and -- hopefully -- a solid operating system.

Screen

A key difference between the Droid Pro and its rivals is that while QWERTY-bar phones often include a relatively small  screen with a landscape orientation, the Pro has a larger portrait-oriented screen. This makes it a little longer than it's relatives within the class, but considering everything that is packed into this device, the Droid Pro is actually surprisingly compact.

Compared directly to my usual phone, a Samsung Jack, the Droid Pro is about a third of an inch taller -- and that's it. They're the same width, and roughly the same thickness, though the Droid Pro is actually a tiny bit thinner over most of the casing, with a small bulge along the top rear. Even granted that my Jack is cheaper and is a year old, I was pleasantly surprised by the size.

Despite it's compact footprint, it squeezes in a 3.1 inch, half-VGA screen -- not the largest or highest resolution on an Android-based device, but roughly comparable to the first three generations of iPhones.

Keyboard

Given the device's size constraints, I had been half expecting the keyboard to be cramped. So it was another pleasant surprise that it was, in fact, every bit as usable as the better thumb keyboards I've tried out.

Good key travel, key separation, and feel. The number keys are spread out along the top row, instead of being placed in a conventional grid formation. The good news, though is that this is made up for by a large and very usable on-screen keypad available from the phone dialer application. Or, you can just speak the number that you want to call -- but we'll get to that later.

Other Buttons & Controls

One of the ways the Droid Pro saves space is by not having a directional pad or directional control of any kind, which is a departure for most QWERTY-bar style phones. At first, I didn't think that I was going to be happy about that omission. Now, after having gotten to use it a bit, I'm not nearly as put out as I expected to be. Yes, there's some situations where it would be nice to have a physical directional control -- particularly navigating cramped web page elements, or relocating a cursor for text entry. But for the most part I've gotten along quite well using touchscreen gestures for scrolling and practicing accurate fingertip clicking.

My biggest complaint about the Droid Pro's design lies in the four navigation buttons right above the keyboard. Because they're part of the screen, and therefore touch sensitive, it's fairly easy to accidentally "push" them if your finger brushes the screen accidentally. Since the center two buttons -- those most likely to be hit accidentally -- both take you back out of the application you're using, it can be very annoying to have to go back and re-start what you were doing. Since you can't vary the sensitivity of these buttons -- and they really do have a hair trigger -- the only real cure for this is time and practice, to get used to having them there and not letting your fingers stray.

With the memory card tucked under the battery cover, the only open ports are the Micro-USB plug on the lower left hand side, and the 3.5 mm audio jack on top. It's nice to have a standard audio plug again, though I wouldn't object to having all the plugs on the bottom, so that I could have a nice car dock for the thing, but that's rather a nitpick.

Overall, the build quality feels good, the design is sleek and very usable, and it packs all it's features into a very reasonable size and weight.

How to Troubleshoot Your Android Wifi

 When you need to connect to a wireless network from your Android phone, you can usually open the settings, select the network, and you’re off and running. In the rare instances when wireless doesn’t cooperate, there are tricks you can use to troubleshoot the issue. These Wi-Fi troubleshooting tips are listed in order of the simplest to the most complicated fix.

Power off

The first thing you should try is to power off your Android phone, remove the battery, leave the battery out for about 30 seconds, replace the battery, and power the phone back on.

Power-cycle wireless

My phone has retained a previous IP address from another wireless connection before and applied it to the current wireless. That’s fine if the address scheme is the same and there is no address conflict, but that is not usually the case. You can try turning off wireless and then turning it back on by following these steps:

1. Tap the Menu button on your handset.

2. Tap Settings.

3. Tap Wireless and Network from within the Settings menu.

4. Tap Wi-Fi settings from the Wireless and Network menu.

5. In the new screen, uncheck Wi-Fi to turn it off.

6. After Wi-Fi is turned off, tap the entry again to turn it back on.

Forget the network

If the previous method does not work, you might need to have your Android device forget the network and then re-add it. Here’s the catch: Your Android device cannot forget a wireless network that is within range, so you will need to get out of range of the network and then do the following:

1. Long press the listed network you want to forget.

2. Tap Forget Network.

3. Get back within range and wait for the network to automatically show up.

4. Enter the network password to join.

Your Android phone should have a new address and be working as you would expect.

Check the wireless password

Wireless passwords (hopefully) change from time to time, but when they do, your phone can’t automatically update. In order to manually change your wireless password, follow these steps:

1. Be out of range of the network in question.

2. Long press the wireless network you need to configure.

3. T ap Change Network Settings.

4. Enter the new password in the resulting screen (Figure A).

5. Check the Show Password box. (I always like to check the Show Password box to make sure I am entering the correct password in my mobile device.)

6. Tap Save when you know the password is correct.

Advanced Wi-Fi settings

If none of the previous solutions worked, you might have to dig a little deeper into the Wi-Fi settings on your Android phone. To get to the Advanced Settings window, follow these steps:

1. Tap the Menu button on your handset.

2. Tap Settings.

3. Tap Wireless and Networks.

4. Tap Wi-Fi settings.

5. Tap the Menu button again.

6. Tap Advanced

7. Tap the Proxy setting and make sure your Android device is not set up for a Proxy. (Unless the Wi-Fi network you are on requires a Proxy, this setting will get in the way of your device’s access to the Internet.) If you tap on Proxy and see an IP address or domain, delete it.

Most likely the Proxy and Port settings will not be set, but it’s always good to check if you’re having frequent issues with Wi-Fi.

Static IP address

Another troubleshooting approach is to give your Android device a static IP address. This could reveal if the router you are trying to connect to is having issues with handing out DHCP addresses, or if your device is getting a bad address. To configure a static IP, tap Use Static IP and then fill in the settings (IP Address, Gateway, Netmask, DNS).

The only issue with setting up a static IP is that address will apply to all wireless networks, so only use this for troubleshooting if you just connect to one Wi-Fi network.

Wi-Fi sleep policy

If you are having persistent Wi-Fi issues, you can set the Wi-Fi sleep policy to Never and see if your issues stop. With this policy set to Never, it will drain your battery faster, but it will also keep your Wi-Fi connected on a more consistent basis.

Summary

I hope these troubleshooting tips help you get through your Wi-Fi headaches. If all else fails on one Wi-Fi network, you should try another network so you know for sure that the issue isn’t the wireless router.

BlackBerry Torch 9800 Review

 The Torch is a different BlackBerry than anything you've seen. Its developer, Research in Motion, has clearly put a great deal of thought into the device design, operation, and even its packaging.

This smartphone boasts a touchscreen, optical trackpad, and slide-out QWERTY keyboard giving it a unique form factor. It also features a revamped operating system complete with new browser designed to be more social media centric.

At $200 on AT&T's 3G network, the BlackBerry Torch is designed to be RIM's flagship device.

 BUILD & DESIGN

The Torch is a touchscreen slider with a full keyboard and optical trackpad, a design that Research in Motion has never used before.

Like all of the newest harvest of BlackBerrys, there is plenty of faux chrome finish to go around. Also like the current generation of BlackBerrys, the styling becomes boring after approximately one second of looking at it.

This is RIM's first slider, and the company has done a fairly good job with this design. The sliding mechanism is smooth with the right amount of resistance. But there are a couple of issues: the device lacks a designated touch point to slide open the device, resulting in thumb smudges on the screen, and using the mute/lock rocker button on the top is awkward when the screen is extended.

Despite these minor detractions, RIM's designers did a good job of allocating enough space above the top-row of the keyboard with the slider open, which has been an issue on other sliders.

Overall the Torch feels well built, and is about as heavy as the competition. With the slider closed, it's 4.4 x 2.4 x 0.6 (111 x 62 x 15 mm).

Screen

The 480x360 3.2-inch touchscreen is lacking in both size and resolution. It's about par for the course compared to other BlackBerrys, but compared to Android OS devices and the iPhone 4 the quality of the screen seems almost an afterthought. If there were one deal breaker about the Torch, it might be the screen.

The touch aspect is comfortable. It is not as responsive or as smooth as the iPhone 4, but it proves usable for any application. Unlike RIM's failed attempts at touchscreens with the Storm and Storm 2, the device is more responsive when shifting from landscape to portrait, and is otherwise reliable and predictable.

Keyboards

The portrait-oriented sliding QWERTY keyboard is reminiscent of one on the the BlackBerry Bold 9700 -- it's a joy to use, and has almost no learning curve. Typing speed and accuracy is phenomenal compared to the virtual keyboard of other devices, like the iPhone.

Its virtual keyboard, on the other hand, is less impressive than other devices'. Despite offering interesting customizations such as AZERTY, QWERTY, QWERTZ layouts and predictive, corrective, and direct input modes, the Torch's on-screen keyboard's typing speed and accuracy pales in comparison to the competition. Still this isn't as big a deal as you might think -- beyond the occasional website or email address, I found myself switching the physical keyboard for almost all of my typing.

 Other Buttons & Controls

The optical trackpad below the screen works as promised with no surprises or complaints. While some may wonder why it's included at all, I find it enhances productivity and efficiency while using the device. While scrolling through long lists is easier with the touchscreen, quickly and accurately selecting a few characters to copy is made easy via the trackpad. Furthermore with the option of using the keyboard and the trackpad exclusively the Torch suddenly becomes a great reading platform for longer emails or web pages.

The Torch retains the traditional volume buttons and convenience key on its right side, and a mute/lock rocker button on top. There is no left-hand convenience key which is a little frustrating -- how else will BlackBerry nation accidentally trigger the "Say a command" prompt?

LG Optimus 4X HD smartphone Features, Specifications

 LG recently made the official announcement of their all new Quad-Core processor Smartphone, named LG Optimus 4X HD.The new LG Optimus 4X HD Smartphone will show off at MWC 2012 which starts from tomarrow.

 The new LG Optimus 4X HD smartphone is the first Quad-Core processor by LG and comes with high end performance.The smartphone has a prism-edged design with stylish look and housed with lot of excellent features.

 New LG Optimus 4X HD smartphone comes with a 4.7-inch True HD IPS display with 1280 x 720 pixel resolution and is powered with a 1.5GHzNVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor.Optimus 4X HD smartphone packs a 1GB LP DDR2 RAM and 16GB internal memory.

The Camera that packs with LG Optimus 4X HD smartphone is a an 8-megapixel BSI (Backside Illumination) sensor camera with flash at rear end and 1.3MP camera at front for clear video chating.Optimus 4X HD smartphone runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS and a bigh 2,150mAh battery providing better power supply.

Other Features of Quad-Core HD smartphone by LG includes Bluetooth, GPS, WiFi and no word is available regarding the presence of a microSD card slot.LG Optimus 4X HD smartphone has a thickness of just 8.9mm.LG Optimus 4X HD is expected to be available in Europe by the second quarter.LETS WAIT AND WATCH...........

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Psychology of Technology: 5 Smartphone Rules to Live By

 The smartphone has become a ubiquitous status symbol of and tool for businesspeople doing   business. In offices, on the streets, and in airports, what self-respecting businessperson doesn’t have their smartphone, whether a Blackberry, Windows Mobile device, Palm, or iPhone, at the ready to make the deal, provide support, change the plan, or just stay up to date on their company’s latest developments at a moment’s notice. The smartphone’s ability to provide businesspeople with instant access to others through email, text messaging, and phone has, in theory, saved time and made the business world run more smoothly by keeping everyone in a company connected all day every day. It can truly be a tool for increased communication, efficiency, and productivity.

The Unintended Consequences of Smartphones

Unfortunately, the smartphone also represents a corporate culture gone mad, in which everyone feels they are so needed that they simply can’t be out of touch with work lest the company collapses without their constant input and output. The smartphone has, falling prey to the theory of unintended consequences, become a weapon against businesspeople that actually hurts corporate discipline, focus, and productivity.

It has also created an upheaval in the already fragile balance between work and life. This state of constant connectedness has blurred (or obliterated) the lines between work and life, creating marital and family conflict, and destroying any hope of peace and quiet when away from the office. Perhaps the last refuge on Earth from the imposition of the smartphone may be the airplane, though that final line of defense against the smartphone onslaught will surely fall in the next few years.

Who’s In Charge Here?

So who’s in charge here? Are you master of your smartphone or does your smartphone own you? Here are a few ways to tell:

Do you take your smartphone with you wherever you go?

Is your smartphone the last thing you look at before you go to sleep and the first thing you look at when you wake up?

Do you make or take business calls regularly when away from work?

Do your family or friends give you exasperated looks when you pull out your smartphone constantly?

If you answered “yes” to these questions, you smartphone runs your life.

Yearning For Freedom

Despite the attachment that you have to your smartphone, there is likely a part of you deep inside that resents the power that it has over you. You may feel a subtle, yet delicious, sense of relief when you “accidently” leave it at work or have guilt-laden fantasies of dropping and breaking your smartphone—by accident, of course—requiring you to be without it for a few days while it is fixed or replaced.

If you feel this way, you need to stand up to your smartphone—”I will not let you control my life!”—and choose to reject its captive power over you.

Smartphone Rules to Live By

Despite the obvious tongue-in-cheek tone so far, this unhealthy relationship with your smartphone has real consequences both at work and at home. And there are some tangible things that you can do to break the grip that your smartphone has on you. Here are five simple rules you can follow to help you regain control of your smartphone so it is once again a tool of efficiency and productivity rather than a weapon against your freedom and mental health.

Rule #1: Don’t look at your smartphone in the morning until you get to work. Peeking at your email or phone messages before you have dressed or had breakfast will create unnecessary distraction, worry, and stress. If you’re married with children, it will also prevent you from being engaged with your family during breakfast. In fact, don’t even look at your smartphone during the drive to work; again, it would serve no purpose as you can’t—or, at least, you shouldn’t—be thumb typing during your commute (unless you’re on a train or bus and you can respond to your phone and email messages).

Rule #2: Don’t look at your smartphone during the day unless you are ready to act on it. It’s not uncommon for businesspeople to look at their smartphones as they head into a meeting or just before a conference call. The primary consequence of doing this is that you will be distracted from your next task. You will be thinking about what you found on your smartphone instead of focusing on the task ahead.

Rule #3: Turn off all smartphones during meetings. In fact, every company should have a “no smartphone” rule for all meetings. There are few things more irritating, distracting, and productivity-killing than having people at a meeting looking at and typing into their smartphones. They are clearly not paying attention to the meeting and, therefore, unable to contribute in any meaningful way. It also distracts others at the meeting. It wastes time and prolongs meetings because no one is focusing on the agenda. Quality and productivity suffer too because the lack of full engagement means that effective problem solving and decision making will be nearly impossible.

Rule #4: Don’t check your smartphone less than 30 minutes before you go to bed. If there are calls or emails you think you must respond to you, you will get to bed later and you’ll get riled up, so you’ll have a harder time falling asleep. The reality is that, in most cases, they can wait until morning, so best not to look. At worst, choose a time between 30 and 60 minutes before bedtime when you take a last look at your smartphone. At best, commit to not checking your smartphone at all in the evening.

Rule #5: Don’t do your smartphone when you are doing life. In other words, don’t look at your smartphone if you are interacting with others, doing something that is supposed to clear your mind of work, such as exercise, meditation, having a meal, watching a movie, or hanging out with family or friends.. There is nothing more annoying to family and friends than to be with you when you are making business calls or responding to email—why are you even with them if you’re with them in body only? It’s okay to check your smartphone periodically, but ONLY IF you don’t interrupt more important life stuff and ONLY IF you are expecting something that you may have to act on quickly.

Letting Go

Your dependence on your smartphone is a habit that develops through repeated use. So you can think of separating from your smartphone as a habit as well; it takes commitment, discipline, and repetition to change. You will find that there are many upsides to regaining control of your smartphone. The people in your life will welcome you back from the smartphone precipice and actually want to be around you. You will be more relaxed, more engaged in life, have more fun, be a whole lot happier and, despite your great fondness for your smartphone, you will find much more interesting and enjoyable things to do with your time.

How to Unlock Your iPhone

 If you're one of the million people who've purchased an iPhone since the end of June, you probably signed up with Apple's exclusive carrier in the U.S., AT&T, when you activated your phone. That means your iPhone identifies itself to AT&T's network using an AT&T SIM card, a smart card that's located in a small tray between your iPhone's sleep/wake button and its recessed headphone jack.

 But what if you're planning a trip to Europe and rather than paying AT&T to use the networks of its European partners, you want to take advantage of the favorable rates and local phone numbers offered by replacing your AT&T SIM card with a pre-paid European card? Or what if you'd prefer to use T-Mobile as your cellular provider, rather than AT&T?

In the past month several groups have announced that they've found a way to "unlock" the iPhone, allowing it to use a SIM card from any provider. (Keep in mind that this is only half the story: the iPhone uses the GSM radio band for its communications, meaning that it'll only work with providers that use the GSM network. In the U.S., that means T-Mobile and AT&T.)

In August, a group of hackers demonstrated a method for unlocking SIM cards and sold its software to resellers, who in turn began selling it to the public for as much as $100 last week.

But another group has came up with its own hack that, with the help of some free, open-source software, lets you unlock your iPhone in about an hour, free of charge. Below, I'll show you how it works - and it does work, because I've used this technique to unlock my own phone. (One important caveat: Certain AT&T-only features, such as Visual Voicemail, will not work when you're connected to other cellular networks.)

Before we get started, you'll want to disable the iTunes helper application that may get in the way of the installation. Make sure iTunes is not running, then open OS X's Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder of the Applications folder. Search for or scroll down to iTunes Helper, select it, and then click on the Quit Process button in the top left of the screen. You'll also need your iPhone, your data cable, and a Wi-Fi connection to the Internet.

(If you haven't already activated your iPhone with AT&T-and aren't planning to-you need to conduct a fake activation. To do this, you'll need to follow the excellent instructions at ModMyiPhone and download and install a program called iNdependence.)

Install AppTapp

Apple doesn't support the installation of third-party applications on the iPhone, but the enterprising developers at NullRiver have created a program called AppTapp that will let you install including chat clients, games, and other pieces of software - including those that are needed to unlock your iPhone.

Apple iPhone 4 Review

Editor's Note: With the release of the iPhone 4S the iPhone 4 is no longer Apple's flagship smartphone. Nevertheless, it's still a powerful device and one that's available at a very good price: $100 with a two-year servuce contract.

  It's also received a number of system software updates since this review was first written, and is now running iOS 5.0. This means it has most of the features of the iPhone 4S except the Siri voice-recognition system. 

Every year Apple hits us with a new, shiny iPhone. This year, we are finally getting features that we've wanted for a while now, such as a new design, front facing camera, a better quality camera with flash, and of course a much improved screen.

The iPhone 4 also packs some hidden treats on the inside, making this the best model so far. Is it worth the upgrade from the iPhone 3G? Did you just recently buy an iPhone 3GS and you aren't sure if you want to upgrade already? Or maybe you have never owned an iPhone yet and are thinking the iPhone 4 might be the time to switch. Keep reading to find out, and see if the iPhone 4 can live up to your expectations.

Note: Pay attention to all the pictures in this review, as they were taken strictly with the new iPhone 4 camera.

DESIGN & BUILD

Apple gave the iPhone 4 a design overhaul from the previous 3GS version. The new model is only 0.37 inches thin, compared to its predecessor which is 0.48 inches.

There is no plastic on the exterior of the iPhone 4, and the standard silver bezel that was the trim to all previous iPhones is now gone. The front and back now glass. Supposedly, the glass used is "30 times harder than plastic", and is "comparable to the strength of sapphire crystal", according to Apple's Jonathon Ives.

Between the two pieces of glass is an aluminum strip that wraps around the entire phone. The cool part about this is that the metal trim serves as an antenna for 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth, which helps signal significantly.

Display

When you first look at the display on the iPhone 4, it is simply gorgeous. This is without a doubt one of the best improvements on the new model. The new screen resolution is 960 x 640, up from 480 x 320 on all previous iPhones and iPod touches.

Since the screen didn't get any bigger, there is a lot more pixels per inch now -- 326 to be exact. Currently, there is no other smartphone on the market with a screen of this resolution. To the human eye, it is almost like a digital print. You really can't see any individual pixels anymore, and everything is more crisp.

 It will only be a matter of time before all the current applications are updated to support the resolution. The developers have to do little work to make this change.

Now if Apple increased the screen size of the iPhone, that would have been a completely different story, but I can't see that happening anytime soon.

Buttons and Controls

On the front of the Apple iPhone 4 you have the standard "Home" button, along with the proximity and ambient light sensor, and the biggest change, a VGA front-facing camera.

Around the outside of the device you can find the standby button, the new microSIM slot (which has some improved benefits over the standard SIM card), a speaker, a microphone, another microphone (that helps remove background noise), a headphone jack, a silent toggle, and two separate volume buttons.

LG Optimus True HD LTE (P936) Smartphone Specifications, Features

 LG recently made the official introduction of its all new smartphone in Germany, the LG Optimus True HD LTE.The Smartphone is previously named as LG P936 Optimus LTE. 

 The new LG Optimus True HD LTE comes equipped with a 4.5-inch touchscreen True HD IPS display with 1280 x 720 pixel resolution and is powered with a 1.5GHz dual-core processor along with 1GB RAM and 4GB internal memory.

 Other LG Optimus True HD LTE Smartphone features includes 8MP rear autofocus camera with LED flash, 1.3 megapixel camera front end camera for video calls, LTE, HSPA+, HDMI, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA and a microSD card slort (16GB already included) that supports upto 32GB card.

 New LG Optimus True HD LTE Smartphone runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS and comes in only black shade(color) option.The True HD LTE Smartphone weighs 135 grams and its dimensions are 133.9 x 67.9 x 10.48 mm.

 The price details of Optimus True HD LTE smartphone in Europe market is not revealed yet.

Sony Xperia S smartphone Global Launch Details, Specifications

 Sony recently announced the global launch of its all new smartphone, Sony Xperia S smartphone which was previously available only in UK.Now the Sony Xperia S smartphone will be soon made available in India and all other markets world wide.

 The new Sony Xperia S smartphone comes equipped with a 4.3-inch scratch-resistant TFT touchscreen display with 1280 x 720 pixel  resolution and Mobile BRAVIA Engine.The smartphone is powered by a dual-core 1.5GHz processor along with 1GB RAM and 32GB Internal memory.

 Other exciting features includes 12.1 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash and Sony Exmor R for mobile CMOS sensor, 1080p Full video recording,  a front-facing 1.3MP camera, HSPA, Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP, GPS, geo-tagging, NFC (quick tap), and WiFi 802.11 b/g/n.

 New Sony Xperia S smartphone runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS. The battery provides about 8 hours 30 minutes of talk time, 420 hours of standby, 25 hours of music playback.Sony Xperia S weighs 144 grams and its dimensions are 128.0 x 64.0 x 10.6 mm.

How to Select a Smartphone

 Choosing the right smartphone for you is a matter of determining what you will be using your smartphone for and finding a phone that excels at that task. For example, photography enthusiasts should find a phone with a high resolution camera, while audiophiles may be more concerned with the device's audio storage capacity and playback quality. With the wide variety of smartphones available, you should be able to find one that is just right for you.

Step 1

Choose a network for your smartphone. Visit the Web pages for wireless service providers and compare their available plans and networks. Check their "Coverage Area" maps to make sure that you'll have coverage in the areas that you frequent. Look at the plans that the carriers offer. Select a plan that offers the right amount of data and voice usage. Also, consider what network your friends and family members use. Many networks offer free calling to other users in the same network.

Step 2

Open the "Phones" page on the network's website and select "Smartphones." Most carriers allow you to select phones based upon their features, using a search bar on the left side of the website. This will help you narrow down your options. You can click on a phone to bring up information about the phone and use your browser's "Back" button to return to the list of phones.

Step 3

Decide on the input method that is best for you. You may want to try out a few of your friends smartphones to get a feel for the different input methods. Smartphones with a touchscreen as their primary input method tend to have a larger display, but some people find them difficult to type on. You may also consider a phone with a slide-out physical QWERTY keyboard or a phone with a smaller screen and a QWERTY keyboard on the front.

Step 4

Think about the amount of data that you intend to store on the phone. If you plan on storing a large amount of music or videos, you should select a smartphone with a large internal memory or with an expandable memory card slot.

Step 5

Consider the devices that you want to connect to your smartphone. Most smartphones feature a micro-USB or mini-USB port for data transfer and charging and a headphone port for audio, but some smartphones use proprietary connections that require special cables. Specialized smartphones may also have video-output connectors so that you can connect your smartphone to a larger screen.

Step 6

Compare the screen size of the phones. Larger screens are better for browsing the Internet and watching videos. Typically, a larger screen requires a larger phone. Consider the amount of space that the phone will take up and how you typically carry and store your phone.

Step 7

Check the smartphone's data transfer rate. If your network offers 4G data speeds in your area, you may want to purchase a 4G-ready smartphone to take advantage of the higher data speeds when browsing the internet or downloading files.

Step 8

Think about how often you want to charge your phone's battery and how often you use the phone. Select a smartphone that has a battery that will last throughout the day.

Smartphones for all your needs

 Bring social to life

Social is brought to life on a Nokia smartphone.

*Capture the world around you in high definition images and video.

*Edit and share your masterpieces with easy access to your favourite social networks - Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and more.

*Express your individual style by customising your smartphone home-screens, or add a splash of colour with the vibrant covers (available for the Nokia 500). 

Enable your mobile office

A Nokia business smartphone will empower you to change the way you work. Packed with a host of business and productivity tool, they will enable you to:

* Always be connected to your office.

* Send and receive all those vital emails wherever you are through real-time push emails.

* Access your calendar so you never miss an appointment.

* Edit and share documents and view PDF files.

* Access maps on the run so you can quickly and easily get to those all important meetings.

Find your way around with maps on your smartphone

All the services you need to enhance your mobile phone experience and make your life easier. Nokia Maps lets you:

 * Always know exactly what's happening around you.

 * Instantly find the best of everything in your city – cafes, shops, events and much more (millions of     places reviewed and rated across the world).

 * Get expert tips from Trip Advisor and Lonely Planet.

 * Free lifetime walk and drive navigation including turn-by-turn voice guidance.