My Tuppence on Cell Fones...

Cell Phone Comparison

I've owned and used the following brands of cell phones
NOKIA(3210,3310,8210,8310,1100),Sony Ericsson(T100,T105,K500i), Samsung(R220,C100), Mitsubishi Trium, Motorola(Walkabout), LG (5130) and Panasonic(GD 90).

Based on my user experiences, I give my ideas on the comparison between these brands based on different parameters.
This is a completely subjective and approximate comparison. The absolute stats may vary based on the model u buy and the price range ur interested in.

Technology :
Sony Ericsson seems to be the winner in this area. All its models in all price ranges offer some technological edge over other brands in the same price range. Motorola comes a close second, with Panasonic and Samsung tied for the third. Nokia comes last in offering technological innovations. It is usually the last to offer innovations. LG is still learning the ropes.
The technological edge I mean can be
- Quality of voice
- Quality of the pictures taken with the camera in the phone
- New features like 64K color screen, Flash for camera, MP3 player etc.

The features offered by SE maybe offered by NOKIA in a higher model.
But speaking on the lines of 'More bang for the buck', SE phones are lot better. Motorola phones have good features, but only at a higher range. (>20K)

But in terms of Battery Standby and Talk times, NOKIA beats them all hands down!!

User Friendliness & Stability:
Predictably NOKIA comes trumps in this arena. All its phones are designed to be 'FOOL-PROOF’. They’re the easiest to use and incredibly stable. I’ve dropped my NOKIA phones (3210, 3310, 8210, 8310) too many times to count but they've always been fine. The maximum physical damage u can do to ur NOKIA phone by dropping it is to break its Panel and keypad-which are damn cheap to replace.

Panasonic comes second in user friendliness. Samsung and Sony Ericsson come third. The main differentiator is those small small improvements in the user interface, in the options menu. Those insignificant additions to the menu options go a long way to decrease user fatigue. LG is OK, but has to add the many small options (like being able to edit the number u just called) which we've come to accept as default.

One more thing I've seen is that Sony Ericsson phone soft wares seem to be designed on the same lines as Windows 98.All the fones I've used (T100, T105, K500i) will hang on the drop of a hat. U press 2 buttons at once, it hangs. U start a game, it hangs. Change the ring tone, it hangs. And sometimes it hangs without any reason at all. But once u re start it, it starts working fine- till the next hanging. Just like Windows.

And the behemoth Motorola comes last. The low end Motorola phones are designed for geeks i guess. In the higher end Clamshell PDA phones, Motorola is the leader, but it fails miserably in the lower end of the spectrum. The phones are a pain to use. And they have an attitude problem. The buttons for accepting and rejecting calls and the menu buttons are arranged in the opposite order to all other models. So, if u're accustomed to using other phones, u try to use a Motorola phone, u'll go mad.

All Said and Done,

I've chosen the categorized the users and the Brands suitable for each.

Yuppies (age 21-24) –
These are people who want the most features in the optimum price. But at the same time have a fascination for gadgets and smart phones. And they’r eready to pay extra if the phone catches their fascination.
The utilities these people need the most in their phones are-
- Nice easy key pad for fast & frequent SMSing
- Nice features like Real tones(MP3 set as ring tones), >1 Mega Pixel (still & video) Camera, Large onboard memory,MP3 player, VIDEO player,3D Arcade games, Bluetooth, if possible-Symbian OS, Net Browsing capability etc.

Brand: Sony Ericsson (K500i, K700i etc) or Motorola (E398) or even NOKIA (6600, 3230) etc...... They come for arnd 15 K now. But worth the money for the oomph quotient!!
(Yours truly falls in this category)

Business Users -(25+) –
These are the people who are PM & above who have to travel frequently. They use their phones as an extension of their office.
What this category needs in their phones:
- PDA capabilities. I can go on and on abt the features, but this tag line explains it all. They don’t need phones. The y need mini PDAs. Of course Sony Erickson P910i and NOKIA 9300 are pretty popular among them.

If they're already using Palm Pilots / Handspring / Oxygen PDA phones, and also need a simple phone for talking purposes only, I’ve noticed that they go for basic models of NOKIA (Eg:3310,3100,2100 etc) which fulfill their need for a low maintenance, simple to use phone with good battery life.

Older people (55+) –
They are mostly our parents whom we gift cell phones so that we can keep in touch with them all the time and also for medical emergencies. They also need low maintenance, simple to use phones with good battery life. Basic models of NOKIA or SAMSUNG will fulfill their needs. (In my case, my dad uses a 1100.But my mom refused to be happy with such phones and snatched my cute little NOKIA 8310 away from me.)



Women –
I know I may draw flak for categorizing them as a separate category. But from ‘my experience’, most of the girls I’ve seen have been always attracted to small, cute, clamshell models with colorful screens to which they attach frilly lacy straps and carry around in their hands – flaunting their feminism. That’s the reason Samsung R220 in spite of being a crappy phone was blessed with a faithful female following. The main reason being that while all other brands at that point of time had utilitarian yellow or white display light colors, R220 had a ‘bright’ blue display. The girls fell for it every time.

Now that all the models have color screens as default, I guess they’ll now be going for the clamshell models from Samsung or NOKIA (2650, 6170, 6260 etc). But there are a lot of women who fall in other categories as well.

Rest of the people –
These are the people who (rightly??) use and consider a cell phone as just that – a phone. They just want a simple to use phone with ok features and ok battery life. They form the segment to which most of the Mobile Phones advertising aim at. They are the people who are easily influenced by the catch words and the promised lifestyle the ads promise. And as they don’t care what they buy as long as it fulfils their needs, they go for a phone without researching the market and the features of the phone that they’re goanna buy.

This results in the fact that many end up buying phones because they wanted some feature which was described in the ads as being awesome and something they cant live without, but finally end up not using the feature at all. But I’m not saying they’re all unhappy with their choice. Just that their decision may not have been the most efficient and optimal.
These people form the bulk of the population.

So, finally after all these ideas and opinions, what am I trying to convey??

When ever u decide to buy a phone, please try to do the following:

Ø First decide on ur price range and identify the phones in that range from all brands.
Ø Take some time to reflect on what ur goanna use it for. If u’ll be using it mostly for SMSing and calling, NOKIA and Samsung phones will be the best as they have nice handy Keypads which are very good for SMSing.
Ø Think if u will be needing the extra features like radio, speaker phone, GPRS etc. The salesman may say that the phone has GPRS and u can browse the net using GPRS. But believe me, it’s no fun browsing sites with a screen the size of 3 postage stamps. GPRS is usually useful only when u have PDA phones or have camera phones.
Ø If ur going for camera phones, see what photo resolution the phones offers. If its anything less than 640 x 480, its not worth it. And most importantly, ask how much memory it has and also what facilities it has to send the photos u take to ur system. For eg : NOKIA 6220 was a nice phone with still and video camera.(One of the first from NOKIA I guess) .But it had a measly 4MB memory. So, even if u took photos or videos there wouldn’t be enough space store them. Ditto with Sony Erickson K500i. It had just 12 MB memory which had to be divided among photos, videos, MP3 songs, Games, Applications, and Themes etc. Memory management becomes a big head ache.
In these cases go for phones with expandable memory (accept MMC cards) and which have Bluetooth. Infrared is of not much use.
Ø Try not to buy the first version of any phone. U may get lucky or be unlucky? (Like the buyers of NOKIA 3530 – the first color mobile from Nokia.)
Ø But at the same time, don’t be afraid to experiment. With the mobile market in India growing at an amazing pace, more and more BIG players are entering the market. For eg, u’ld may not have heard of SAGEM or BIRD, but they are very big players in the European market. U may get great value deals.

In the case of Cell Phone Networks, I’ve used AIRTEL, HUTCH, IDEA, BSNL, AIRCEL , BPL and RELIANCE.

In Bangalore, AIRTEL had the best network, but I heard form a honcho at Hutch that they’re pumping in loads of money to better their coverage in India. And in CDMA phones, I heard reliance is good. But all these depend upon who has a tower near ur house/office. So, don’t believe what I say. Talk to people around u what connection they’re using and decide for urself.

Regarding Post Paid or Pre Paid. I would suggest those who wanna restrict their Phone bills and make very few outgoing calls to stick with Prepaid. U may think that u pay 300 per month as rent (Assuming u charge ur cell with 2 Rs: 315 cards a month) and if u come to post paid, u’ll have to pay only arnd 200 rs as rent. But unfortunately, life doesn’t follow this logic. Once u don’t have that little message telling u ur balance after every call, u don’t think of restricting ur calls and end up spending a lot on bills.

Always remember, the Mobile Services companies use the Prepaid to lure users to postpaid. So, prepaid users have more features, more freebies and more hype but generate very less income for the company. The postpaid users are the cash cows who have to pay for the deficit of the prepaid business of the network provider.

So, switch over to Postpaid only if u make a lot of Outgoing calls.
And finally, do remember that the Indian Market is one of the fastest growing in the world and has the cheapest call rates in the world too. This won’t be like this for too long. Make the best use of this as possible. Try to make the most optimal choices and extract the most benefits out of ur network provider.

Happy Calling…..

Regards,
-Cne
Standard Disclaimer:
I accept that all these above words and the ideas described in them are mine. U didn’t pay me for these words, so I assume no responsibility for any actions u take based on the above ideas and comments. But I’ll be happy if u have gained something from reading this.

Bouquets and brickbats please direct as comments.