Weekend Advice: Choose YOUR perfect Handset, Part 1
As a certified “phone geek” in my surroundings, I have faced a lot of “Rita can you help me with this?” or “Rita where do I get that?” questions. The most absurd one, and the most frequent one for that matter, is “What’s the best phone on the market?”. This is where I usually stand, and take a deep look at the person asking. After a few moments, I usually answer “for me, it’s the device X; but for you, I advise the device Y”. This is something I have been doing for a while now, but never thought about writing it until I read Ricky’s opinion of the E66.
Despite the E66 being true to all of its promises, and despite its numerous features, Ricky felt that this wasn’t a handset for him. Which brought me to remembering my usual advice: “There is no overall perfect handset, but there’s a perfect one for each person’s needs”. In the S60 arena, we argue a lot about what handset is the best. For me, it’s the N82 black without a doubt, but I’m sure that if you ask Ricky, he’ll say N95-3; for Steve Litchfield I believe it’s the N95 8GB; for Mitchell Oke it’s the E71 now; for other persons, it could be the N78, E90, E66, N96, N81, E51, and that’s only in S60 Nokia offerings. If we look at other manufacturers and OS, the sky is the limit.
The next time you want to buy a new handset, do not EVER think that you’re bound to a certain model because everyone else bought it or because a renowned phone reviewer thinks it’s awesome. Stop for a minute and think of the features YOU use the most, those that you exploit rarely, and those that are cool to have but of no practical use to you. Then narrow down your search by your top 2 manufacturers and operating systems and scratch the ones that don’t fit your budget at all. Write down the remaining possibilities, go to a phone retailer, hold them in your hands. If a handset doesn’t feel in your hand as well as it does on the screen, then you may want to overlook it since you will be using the device and not looking at its picture.
And make sure that before you purchase anything, you read some good reviews of it: you can head to WirelessInfo, my favorite go-to site for very objective and comparative reviews, or look around the web for subjective reviews with personal impressions. Having a look at both types is crucial since this is the only way to have a great overview of the handset before buying it.
Stay tuned for tomorrow as I continue this series by looking at the appropriate handset according to different user profiles.
Well said. I get that question all the time and the answer ranges from budget phones all the way up to the e90. People seem to think phones are still defined by how many ringtones they have and if the cover is changable, therefore giving an easy answer to which phone is best. It annoys the hell outta me, but then there are things I don’t know so well so I kinda forgive them.
I remember when I bought my first Series60 phone – The N-gage classic, and utilized it to the fullest.
All my other classmates thought I was just playing (games) with my phone. The S60 phones have always been doable to do daily things and more. Now that the focus of these phones have extended to media capabilities I do use them.
I totally agree on the fact that everyone should choose a phone which they use the features on. A friend of mine ended up with the 6220 Classic recently and when I asked if he had used the camera yet. He replied that he hadn’t. He’s N73 died recently and the 6220 Classic was one of the phones I recommended to him bresides the obvious N95 (8Gb) and the N82.
Feeling a part guilty I asked if he could return the phone in which he could. He had however decided to keep his phone, but still complaining about the keypad of the handset.
Featurewise I know he will use most of them as he is a computer “geek”.
I do have the “urge” to recommend devices that can be a little overkill functionwise as I really like the all-in-one devices.
But lastly I can only give him advices and the final decision is up to himself to make.
I very much agree with you, and not least because it is exactly what I tell people, when they ask me.
I have an N81, which to many is a bastard phone. But it’s “lacks” are my likes; bad camera and no gps.
- Have a camera, don’t need another good one (2mp is enough for snap-shot needs – though next primary phone might be the ZN5).
- Have a gps, don’t need it built into my device.
I wanted a music-centric phone, and it’s one of the best on the market.
- Also compared to the N95, smaller screen + bigger battery(not the N95-8gb of course) = more hours.
Each their own
I wish we could combine the best features of different phones into one. Someone should start selling a modular phone, you pick and choose what your device has. For now, I believe that the combo of an iPhone and N82 is great because between the two of them I am pretty much covered in any situation. The iPhone is the beauty with limited functionality and the N82 is the sexy beast with lots of brains (so hard to find in real life…).
To me the n95-4 is the best, i had all the n95’s to date and the n82 twice, i never keep my phone in my pocket so the size dont make a difference To a certain extent(e90). The thing that sold me on the n95-4 was the screen , color, and design liked the n82, but the dim screen, small screen in comparison and the lack of us 3g, and the lower sounding speakers, just did me in, all great phones and i think they all can take something from 1 another, i wish a camera cover, expandable memory same size screen if not bigger, better resolution and definitely XENON FLASH.
A very important point as what your experience has been colours very much what you want. I remember Ricky’s review of the e66 (I bought one) when I considered all the reviews, for me, had been ‘upside down’. The reviewers have praised the email and pim – have they never used other devices??? This for me is the weakest of s60 coming from an ipaq/treo background. Reviews criticise the camera which, if you come from a palm, blackberry or winmob device is superb in comparison!
[...] yesterday’s first part of this editorial about picking the perfect handset that fits your personal needs, I will look today at the offerings [...]