Introduction

Smartphones are mobile devices that do a lot more than just make
calls and send texts. They have cameras; they play music & videos;
they send and receive email; they browse the web; they have GPS
satellite navigation. They also have QWERTY keyboards (real, virtual
onscreen or both) and perhaps most important of all, they run apps.
Apps (or applications) are pre-installed or downloadable pieces of
software that can do ... well, almost anything. They could be games,
they could be business & office tools, they could be personal
organisers, or they could be silly time-wasting gimmicks. Apps make
smartphones more like portable computers, which is exactly what they
are. The description of a modern smartphone sounds just like a
computer, with multi-core processors, gigabytes of memory, and a real
operating system.
So, a smartphone is a mobile device that behaves in many ways like a
portable computer that's always connected to the internet and a
GSM/3G/4G phone network too. With a GPS receiver in addition, it
knows where you are. Features like voice commands and a large
touchscreen make it increasingly easy to use. And with so many
functions and ways to communicate, making voice calls is less and less
what a modern smartphone is all about.
The first smartphone was designed by IBM and sold by BellSouth (formerly part
of theAT&T Corporation) in 1993. It included a touchscreen interface for
accessing its calendar, address book, calculator, and other functions. As the
market matured and solid-statecomputer memory and integrated circuits became
less expensive over the following decade, smartphones became more computerlike, and more more-advanced services, such as Internet access, became
possible. Advanced services became ubiquitous with the introduction of the socalled third-generation (3G) mobile phone networks in 2001. Before 3G, most
mobile phones could send and receive data at a rate sufficient for telephonecalls
and text messages. Using 3G, communication takes place at bit-rates high
enough for sending and receiving photographs, video clips, music files, e-mails,
and more. Most smartphone manufacturers license an operating system, such
as Microsoft Corporations Windows Mobile OS, Symbian OS, Googles Android
OS, or Palm OS. Research in MotionsBlackBerry and Apple Inc.s iPhone have
their own proprietary systems.

The use of smartphones has seen a steady and rapid increase over time and
space. These days, any decision to buy a smartphone is one motivated by

knowledge that a good smartphone can allow you to accomplish more than you
thought you could - whether professional or personal - and remain mobile.
However, as with most other electronics market spaces, there are an insane
number of manufacturers and smartphones, making choosing your next big
gadget-related investment a dicey proposition, if you have not conducted
sufficient research into all possible angles.
There are a number of requirements you need to consider, ranging from
something as simple as price and budget to whether or not you want a camera or
a particular kind of technology; even brand can play a big role in determining
what you will eventually plump for.
A survey conducted by GSM Arena on this topic threw up a huge list of criterion,
from which select the ten most important points you should consider...

Social Networking
Social networking refers to the use of online platforms that focus on building
social networks across the world, allowing users to share common interests,
notifications of activities or events and even daily thoughts. The popularity of
platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ has grown exponentially in recent
times and shows no real sign of slowing down, suggest that
a smartphonecapable of seamlessly integrating with any one or all of the
aforementioned services is a must.
According to the survey, 53.2 percent of users polled tend to update and read
statuses as well as upload photographs to their networking accounts every day,
while another 26.6 percent do so occasionally. The most frequent users are,
logically, enough, the younger generations (up to 24 years old) are the most
active and account for nearly 60 percent.

Taking Photos
Smartphones users have long realised the utility of a good camera on their
phones and manufacturers have hastened to comply with their requests. The
survey suggests that 98.6 percent of polled users are frequent users of their
smartphone's cameras - teenagers are the most frequent (take photographs
every day) compared to people over the age of 50 (take photographs once a
week). Women tend to use the camera's special features more often than men,
who, however, retaliate by taking more photographs.

Listening To Music

As much as 60.7 percent of polled users said they listen to music on their phones
every day, while another 34.6 percent said they do so occasionally. In effect,
more than 95 percent of people with smartphones use their phones as much as
portable music players as anything else.

Watch Online Videos

Perhaps unsurprisingly, men are more likely than women to watch videos
online and these usually tend to be music videos or short comic clips and GSM
Arena claims their popularity is almost double that of regular films.
Business Wire reported a 34 percent increase in accessing videos on
smartphones over the past year and that 52 percent of allsmartphone videos are
watched at home, between 5 pm and 11 pm.

Mobile Gaming
Naturally, the thrill of mobile gaming is a big reason to buy asmartphone,
particularly since the high-end devices like the newly launched Samsung Galaxy
S3 sports such fantastic graphics and processing power. Predictably, mobile
gaming is most popular among youngsters, with 60 percent enjoying games
every day. The interest in mobile gaming seems to decrease with age though; the
feature's overall score is only 47.7 percent. Finally, the survey suggests women
are less enamoured by mobile games than men.

Web Browsing
According to the survey, 78.6 percent of all users browse the web on their
phones daily. In fact, only one in 80 respondents has never done so. Women and
people over 50 years of age tend to use the web less often than young men do.
Installing New Apps
Unlike traditional cell phones, smartphones allow users to installapps of their
choice. According to the survey, only 45 percent of the users check the app
stores every day, while the total visitors who tend to browse the app stores are
double that number. Naturally, teenagers are the most frequent users, while
women and people over 50 hardly browse the app stores.

Send SMS

One of the most obvious advantages of any mobile phone, let alone
a smartphone, is the ability to text. Although its popularity has waned a little over
the years, the report says as much as 78.7 percent of polled users confirm
texting is something they do often

Alarm clock

Interestingly, according to the survey, a total of 97.8 percent of allphone

users use the alarm clock feature; 82.7 percent use it every day. The
reports suggest people in the age group of 25 - 32 use it the most, while the
youngest (under-18) and the oldest (over 50) rarely do so.

Mobile internet usage

Finally, the lure of mobile Internet on the go makes for a very convenient way of
accessing the Internet from a smartphone, via a USB modem. According to the
survey, over 90 percent of all the users access the Internet (71 percent do so
every day). Incidentally, teenagers score below average on this count, possibly
because of the high cost of using the Internet.

1) They keep people from connecting with each other: One of my favorite parts of taking my
daughter, now 8, to the park, was sitting on the benches chatting with the other moms. Youd
strike up a conversation about diapers or stroller models, and maybe youd make a friend that you
could meet for coffee or park-dates, or maybe youd never see each other again. Regardless, you
connected. These days on park benches, not so much with the connecting. Lots of bent heads
and phone fiddling. People come to the park alone, they sit alone and they leave alone. Its a little
sad, if you ask me.
2. Theyre addictive as hell: Im 43, which is old enough to remember life without computers. I
got my first computer in 1995, and started spending a few hours a day chatting with people about
music and movies on AOL chat rooms (remember those?). But when I got tired of sitting at my
desk, Id go do something else: talk to someone, go out dancing, go take a walk. Some years
later, I switched from a desktop to a laptop. Immediately, my screen time mushroomed. Now that I
could take my computer right on into bed with me, I did. My computer screen is, quite often, the
last thing I see before I go to sleep and one of the first things I look at when I get up. Its clear: the
more comfortable technology is to carry around, the more you fiddle with it, to the detriment of
every single other thing in your life.
3. They keep people from seeing danger: In October in San Francisco, a disturbed gunman on
a bus crowded with commuters pulled out a gun, pointed it a few times, scratched his nose with it
in his hand. The fellow passengers, engrossed in their smart phones, didnt notice. Until he pulled
the trigger and randomly murdered a 20-year-old student who had the misfortune to be sitting
nearby. People walk into traffic while texting, they almost walkright into great big BEARS, they fall
into fountains, they walk off cliffs. Im already a klutz, I dont need to add to it.
4. They keep people from seeing beautiful things: Been to a recital lately? Seen the rows of
parents holding up their phones to record the show, and not really watching? I ride the bus to
work, and I make a point of not bringing anything to distract me from watching out the windows. I
see fluffy dogs, and women in beautiful dresses, and sleek street cars, and little tiny details on
buildings, and the woman at the restaurant who always seems to be cleaning the windows when
we go by, and patrons spilling out of the library and citizens heading into San Franciscos soaring
city hall. There is so, so much to see every day, and it makes me smile and laugh and makes my
heart fill up with the joy of beautiful things, which I seldom feel when looking at some type of
screen.

5. They make people act less human to each other: Louis CK had a priceless rant on the
Conan OBrien show that explained why he wouldnt get his kids a phone: Because when people
relate to each other, the way we develop empathy is by watching the effect our words and actions
have on other people. In the online world, with just sterile typed words to go by, people can be
terribly cruel to each other without having to see the people they hurt. With a few clicks, they can
spread terrible words to hundreds, even millions of people. Its scary. And it seems like a bad
thing.

Disadvantages

Hinder Real Human Interaction

Our phones can do so much these days that some people have trouble
tearing themselves away long enough to reconnect with the real world.
Youve likely seen them around town, on public transportation, and in
stores with their eyes and fingers glued to their mobile device. Instead
of interacting with the people around them, they ignore face-to-face
conversation for virtual ones.
Many believe that our younger generation is actually less capable of
normal socializing because of this. Theyve gotten so little practice that
theyre simply not comfortable with chatting with someone they meet
out in public. Since humans are social creatures by nature who need
real life connections, this runs the risk of becoming a huge problem for
society.

Lead to Some Pretty Serious Accidents

Thats not the only way the inattention to their surrounding caused by
cell phones creates problems. It can actually cost lives when drivers
focused on texting or social media lose control of their vehicle and have
major accidents. Is letting your friend know youre on the way really
worth dying over?

And its not safe to do it while youre walking either. For one, people
have stepped into oncoming traffic while staring at the screen of their
phone. Less seriously, you can fall down stairs, trip over something on
the ground, or bump into a wall or another pedestrian while youre
absorbed with whats happening on Facebook.

Breaches of Privacy and Security

While having all your information in one handy device can be

extremely convenient, it also has the potential to be very dangerous. All
it takes is forgetting your phone in some bathroom or movie theater
and suddenly, your whole life is exposed to the person who finds it.
Your contacts, documents, social media accounts, and even banking
information is theirs to do with as they please.
The privacy aspect is less damaging than your compromised bank
account but probably a little more embarrassing. Are there any photos
on your phone that youd rather not show to some random stranger?
How about those sappy text messages with your boy or girlfriend? We
thought so. Just leaving your phone on the couch while you use the
bathroom can be enough to give a snooper a peak into your private life.
And even if you never let your phone leave your sight, hackers can still
break into your information remotely if the motivation is there. Keep
that in mind the next time youre thinking about putting important or
otherwise sensitive stuff on your mobile.

Advantages

Communicating with Friends, Family, and Coworkers

This one is pretty obvious but bare with us. Since the first cell phone,
weve been able to make calls while on the go. But given the fact that
almost everyone today owns at least a basic mobile phone and the
majority have their phone on hand at all times, youre able to get in
touch with people nearly 24/7.
Add to this the cell phone towers constantly popping up to give us everimproving reception and even being in a building or outside of the city
isnt the problem it used to be. This comes in handy in so many ways.
Let your boss know about last second changes to an important business
deal, keep tabs on your kids, hit a friend for an impromptu hangout, or
even call for help in an emergency. All these things and more are easier
than ever.