Buying a new smartphone for your business? Confused by all the options and the hype? What’s the best bang for your business buck?
Don’t rely on Facebook advice or your kids to make this decision.
Consider before you buy
What should you consider before you buy? Before I got my new phone in December I reviewed my cell phone bills for the last year and noted my data usage. Two reasons for this: one my contract was up for renewal and I needed to pick a data usage plan and second to figure out much storage space I required on the new phone.
How do you use your phone for business? What apps?
If your smartphone is your primary business phone, long battery life is important.
If you download or create a lot of files like pictures and videos for your business, built-in storage space and the ability to add an SD card is really important. It’s cheaper to add storage than to drag it down over your data plan.
How big a screen do you need? Do you read big documents on the phone? Do you have older eyesight?
How does the phone operating system and apps work with your other devices? If you’re all Apple person, an Android phone would mean more time spent learning the Android system and getting it to synchronize with your other devices.
Let’s summarize the considerations:
- Review your cellphone bills for the last year for data usage
- Do you need really good battery life
- How much storage space do you need
- Need good camera and video for business
- How big a screen do you need?
- Phone operating system works with your other devices easily
Through The Glass Darkly
Sapphire Glass? Gorilla glass? What the difference? Both are hardened glass designed to resist scratches and breakage. Gorilla glass has a slight edge in weight and resistance to breakage.
If you’re at high risk for breakage (like construction work) or previously you’ve cracked or broken your phone, go for Gorilla Glass and an Otterbox case.
What phone I picked
I went with the Windows phone, a Nokia Lumia 630. Why?
- My existing phone was Windows, no learning curve
- Preloaded with Office so I can create and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files
- OneNote, which I use a lot for client site visits automatically synchronized with my desktop and laptop
- Has all the other business apps I need like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook.
- Camera more than adequate for my point and shoot business needs
- Ability to add SD card for more storage space if required
- Good battery life
- Customizable home screen
The glory of the Windows phone for me is the ability to completely customize the home screen. You can choose the tiles, the size of the tiles of the placement of the tiles according to your needs. See picture. Also I can easily separate my work exchange email account from my personal email. Less time wasted finding apps I need right away.
Also because I went from a Windows phone to another Windows Phone it transferred over my call history and text message history.
Because Windows phones are not as popular as Android and Apple, I got the phone free with my contract renewal. If had gone with an Android with similar hardware specs, it would have cost me at least $500.
One more picture: viewing one of my PowerPoint presentations on the phone. It displays the slide, the notes and has an edit option.
