Battle of the mobiles – simple versus smart phones

A simple PAYG phone with a long battery life is all I need, though maybe a spare battery would be handy if I don’t get round to charging it at the weekend. I’m rarely far away from my laptop or iPad, so I don’t need a fancy phone.on a contract that might go up in price.

For all it’s foibles my smart phone is very handy, but if I really need to make sure that I can either take or make a call a basic PAYG phone always goes with me.

I resisted changing up to a smartphone for ages. I recently changed and am now utterly hooked. How handy are these things? Very!
The only downside is of course, battery life. 1-2 days and it’s done for but then it is quite a powerful mini computer with a phone facility when you consider it.
My personal answer is to keep my old steam powered phone on a PAYG basis. That way I’ve always got a phone charged up for emergency use. I also take it to Europe for easier, occasional calls without the danger of inadvertantly switching on expensive data roaming and once again, for the battery life.
Smartphones are just like a lot of things in modern life-you can do without if you like but you will become increasingly marginalised for business transactions. You can be a luddite, it’s your privilege, but don’t then moan when the world changes and you can’t keep up.
I think of my career as a musician. Firstly it was ” you must rent a flat with a phone” then “you must have your own phone”. Along came pagers (remember them?), then you had to have an ansaphone and fax. Next mobile became de rigeur and now most gigs are booked by email which you have to answer quickly…by smartphone or miss out. I wonder what’s next?

A phone with a “Contacts” App that does not put the information on-line. Something like Palm gave you on itsTungsten E2. A “contact” that can also be a living, reference and historic file. It doesn’t take a genius to dial the telephone number or text a message separately.

I was dubious about any mobile let alone a smartphone – even though I am a bit of a computer wiz. I started off with an Orange San Francisco (ZTE Blade), an £89 introduction to smartphones. I was soon hooked!

Before going to India last December, I invested in a Samsung Galaxy S2 as we were spending 7 weeks travelling around the country including a 3,000 km drive down country in a tuk-tuk. The S2 was just brilliant. Kept in touch with everyone at home using email (roaming Data using an Indian AirTel SIM purchased at Delhi airport), SMS and email (using WiFi where available and roaming data). Google Maps coverage of India was fantastic – infinitely better than the Garmin Maps we purchased especially for our SatNav – updating the maps using mobile data was remarkably fast. And the phone doubled up as a reasonable cameras for quick snaps and video. The battery life isn’t the best so we took a mobile charger. I even used it with the Kindle app and read several books on it during the India tour. In my opinion, it is better than a Kindle! The BBC and The Times apps kept me up to date with UK events. And with the Indian sim with roaming enabled, we barely spent £40 on data and voice in 7 weeks: G3 coverage in India is excellent.

For those who like a decent keyboard, there are keyboard apps you can download for just a couple of pounds that are better than those provided with Android 3 or 4.

The best feature is the outstanding Super AMOLED+ screen. So if you want to email, sms, phone, navigate, take snaps or short videos, read the latest books and keep in touch with News events, a smartphone is for you.

Eventually, I got an iPhone 4s after dissing all these things but what a revelation! It seamlessly syncs with my iMac. I forget things a lot these days as I get older but the iPhone does not.

So refreshing to get friendly & informed support at the Apple shop in town, nothing seems a problem for the staff. If there’s anything that I can’t work out, I just go into the shop and the staff don’t have a problem helping me without me feeling like an old t**t.

Yes they are pricey but you get what you pay for.

my 7 year old daughter is extremely adept at using a smart phone for games and she uses mums all the time. mum tells me she wants her own phone for her birthday. I am conscious as shes inner city security theft and misuse generally and a bit uneasy that she should have her own hone at 7 but also aware that all kids are techno friendly. she loves Barbie , pink etc so a normal healthy but very bright girl. what phone should I consider for her?