As most people I know, I’m a fan of technological “toys.” Smartphones are one of those things, however, that I was a bit slower in getting, mostly due to the costs involved. The phones themselves tend to be more expensive, and you frequently have to have a data plan attached for at least $15/mo with many carriers.
There are obvious reasons that a smartphone can make your life easier, and most of these reasons involve internet access. Alternatively, they can also make your life more complicated, especially if you detest the feeling of constant connectedness (which I don’t). I’ve decided, however, to compile a list of reasons that are a bit less obvious to consider a smartphone.
- Customization – In many cases, people will get a new phone with a contract renewal and are then stuck with that phone for 2 years until the contract is up. You can always buy a new phone, but you won’t get the subsidized version, thereby making what was a $100 more like $500 (the price of a reasonable laptop…). Over the course of 2 years, I tend to get tired of the interface, especially as I’m seeing new phones coming out to supersede mine. It makes the phone feel old, even though it works perfectly fine. Smartphones radically change this dynamic. Phones that run the Android OS, especially, have “themes” that can be installed to completely change the interface, much like you can change the wallpaper, icons, and color schemes on your computer. In the case of many Android phones, you can even get OS upgrades that provide many new features. And you can install applications. In total, it’s like getting a new phone every time you change the theme or upgrade the OS, much as getting a new version of Windows or Linux is like getting a whole new computer.
- WiFi – This could seem like an “obvious” or a “less obvious” depending on how you look at it, I would argue that most people would look to the 3G or 4G radios as being the most useful feature of these phones, yet I find that I hardly use that particular technology. With AT&T, for $15/mo, you get 200 MB of data to download. Right now, about 3/4 through the billing cycle, I’ve used about 36% of my allotment, and I’ve actually been using it more heavily than I normally do this month. This fact will change depending on where you work, but in my case, I typically work around WiFi, and I have WiFi at home. So for me, the WiFi is a much more useful feature in the phone. Sure, it’s nice to have 3G available, but living in the Midwest as we do, traveling between Iowa and Missouri, I find that we rarely have 3G access for the whole trip anyway.
- Camera – My phone, the HTC Inspire 4G, has an 8 MP camera and an LED flash. It isn’t the greatest camera in the world, but it’s “good enough” for snapshots. I don’t use it as a camera replacement, however I find that I’m much more likely to take a picture and upload it to Facebook for all to see, as it’s thoroughly convenient. As simple as: take picture; click button; select “Facebook;” and then upload. In the past, I had to grab the camera, take the picture, remove the SD card to transfer the picture to the computer, open the browser, resize the picture, then upload it. Much more cumbersome, especially for something as “inconsequential” as a random picture of Meg eating her lunch. Having a reasonably decent camera on me at all times has made me take more pictures of Meg for the sole purpose of posting it online.
Of course, there are countless other reasons to have a smartphone. I just figure that these are a few that one may not consider as they’re shopping around. At least, these are the things I find myself most impressed by and using more often than I thought I would (with the exception of the Wifi…I knew I’d use it all the time…).