A lot of Windows Phones has been released and a lot more are being released every month, this can really make the choice difficult. So, how to identify the best Windows Phone? For the next few minutes, we will be going through the features that might differ between devices. There are a lot of aspects that govern a Windows Phone Power, Screen, Size, Weight … etc let’s go into these things in details.
Touch or Type?
Windows Mobile comes with different flavors, one of these flavors is you can get different form factors. Some have a touch screen while other have full QWERTY keyboard and other devices combine the best of both, Touch Screens and full QWERTY keyboard.
Having a touch screen device is nice, and it’s much easier to use but it can consume your battery due to the large screen. The full QWERTY kb allows real fast typing so if you do a lot of work on the move, the best choice would be a device with a full KB, and still you can choose between touch screen and a non touch sensitive one.
Which Touch Screen? Resistive or Capacitive?
Currently, there are 2 technologies available for touch screens, Resistive and Capacitive. Each one have its pros and cons. For example, resistive requires more pressure on the screen that the capacitive. You can use any object to touch the resistive screen while for capacitive you MUST use your fingers. Think about this, it’s very cold outside and you are wearing gloves, take your phone out and want to use it. Would you prefer to be an owner of a resistive or capacitive? Here is a small table to compare few of the pros and cons of each.
1. Resistive
- Any object can register a click
- Requires more click Pressure
- More precise as you can use Stylus
- Doesn’t have multi touch (even though it is a work in progress http://cli.gs/VNtYP)
2. Capacitive
- Can register a click only with fingers (or skin in general)
- A Slight touch will do
- Accuracy is an issue, you cannot touch small objects easily!
- Can do Multitouch and pinch to zoom
This is a tricky question, I used to have the Xperia X1. It is a great device no doubt about it with a real classy look in the hand. Later I had to use the internet a lot on the move so I was using the device, small screen 3.0″ really gave me some hard time. Then I moved to the HD and it was a real difference. If you are going to browse the internet on your phone or watch videos, get a large screen device. HTC HD2 has a massive screen of 4.3″ which is really great for videos and internet browsing. But remember, the larger the screen is the more size it will take in your pocket. And it might not fit in it!
If you don’t care about the size of the device, get something big (or massive as HTC calls the HD2) my advice is go for a balanced device (3.6″ for example) if you do all these stuff. Small screens look tempting so if they fit your need, go for it.
Which Processor?
New devices now come with different processors, the new Snapdragon 1GHz processor from Qualcomm is the fastest and the most recent released processor until the time this article was written. There are other good processors as well like Samsung S3C6410 800MHz but my advice to you, don’t go back for the old 500MHz processor unless price really make a difference, these old processor are good and fast enough for a PDA but there is a whole new generation released of processors so I personally tend to get the latest technology available in the marketJ.
Which Storage Capacity?
Obviously, the larger is better BUT most of the devices that come with large storage don’t have an SD Card Slot! This can make it difficult for you to let’s say buy a navigation software that comes preinstalled on an SD Card or swap SDHC cards in case your first one is full of photos or videos captured using your phone. My advice in this field is to get a device with an SDHC memory card capability. And don’t forget to get yourself a 4 or 8GB, even 16GB if available.
Which Camera?
We all love to get the Highest Megapixel available on a phone, which is valid but doesn’t make any sense! Unless you are enlarging the photos to a massive scale a camera with a 5MegaPixels will be more than enough. Even my SonyEricsson Xperia 3.2MP camera was really great, got some photos and printed them, the results are phenomenal. Though I have one advice for you, get a phone with a flash even if it is LED flash it is great.
The photo above is taken using the HTC Touch HD 5 Mega Pixel camera; I guess it is great for everyday’s useJ.
Get a Windows Phone not Windows Mobile!
When Microsoft released the new version of Windows Mobile, they started calling these devices Windows Phones IF they run Windows Mobile 6.5, make sure you get the latest version of the OS. WM6.5 is really stable and fast so make sure you get a Windows Phone.
This post is written by Adel R. Al Zubeir from Windows Phone Middle East Community!
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