  Mobile Phone Buyers Guide for 2010
Though the global economy is still fragile as it recovers from the recession and strives for growth, the mobile phone industry is set to continue in its quest for market saturation this year. Nokia has predicted that it will sell half a billion mobile phones in 2010 and the smartphone market will come even closer to mass appeal with new operating systems and handsets offering intelligent features for less. In China the biggest network provider in the world said that it believes the cost of smartphones will fall by 50 per cent by 2012, though this year more modest falls of 3 per cent have been forecast.
If you are going to be picking up a new mobile phone in 2010, there are even more things to think about than ever before. No longer is it a case of picking a phone based on its size and shape, as the technical specifications can vary wildly even within a similar price range. Read on to discover the best advice for choosing a mobile phone this year.
The first consideration is what type of interface you require. Most smartphones and a growing number of low cost mobiles offer touch sensitive screens and just two or three physical buttons. Touch screen interfaces are intuitive and modern when well implemented, but sub-par responsiveness and a poorly designed interface can make a touch screen mobile a real pain to use. Some touch screen phones also have a full physical QWERTY keypad to offset the inadequacies of the screen and to make typing emails and texts easier. You can also stick to non-touch screen phones with either the slider, flip or bar design depending on your preferences and business phones like the BlackBerry range offer full QWERTY keypads and non-touch screens without any hinge mechanism to worry about.
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Mobile Phone Buyers Guide - Chosing the Operating System
The next consideration is the type of operating system that is best for you. Most manufacturers work with a range of different software platforms and there are six or seven major ones to look out for. Nokia uses the Symbian S60 platform for most of its smartphones and this is solid if slightly bland in their hands. HTC and Motorola are among a growing number offering smartphones based on the Google Android operating system and with greater support comes greater improvements, which makes Android the OS of choice if you want a touch screen mobile.
That is if you do not want to pick up the Apple iPhone, which has its own unique software that offers the most user-friendly operation on the planet. The iPhone will set you back a lot more than alternative platforms, but its popularity is unsurpassed.
The final consideration is what kind of hardware you need in a mobile phone. If you want to go on the internet, download files and stream videos then you will need a phone that has a 3G connection with HSDPA compatibility, allowing for 7.2Mbps download speeds and up. Built-in Wi-Fi connectivity might also be useful, as this will let you browse and download without building up data costs. If you are more interested in viewing media and taking pictures then you will need a phone offering a decent camera and internal storage. Cameras of up to 12 megapixels are fitted to some phones, whilst on board memory can often be augmented with a microSD memory card, though some smartphones have 8, 16 or even 32GB of space to play with straight out of the box.
Of course these considerations if you are looking for a basic mobile phones pay as you go deal and there are still many low price mobiles that perform their basic functions admirably without costing an arm and a leg.
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