The right mobile for me?

With more than 3 billion users worldwide, mobile phones are here to stay. And, like with all electronic devices, you buy them once and you are hooked for life. Most of us use one model for not more than three years. Either the efficiency of the phone goes down or a new offer is too good to resist. And that's why buying the right phone at the right price is all the more important!

When I bought my first touchscreen phone - O2 XDA Atom - I thought I would use it for at least 3 years. And rightly so, at 2200 UAE Dirhams in 2007 it was not cheap. Sadly it wasn't a good choice!

First, the purchase of O2 was an impulsive decision. Second, I didn't go for iMate as too many people were already carrying it. I should have bought the iMate. A colleague of mine has been using different models of the series, without any issues, for years now.

My O2 started having audio problems right after the first year of use. The screen followed suit, it turned completely white at times. Although my O2 is still working (with major irritations off course) I switched over to Nokia E71 this month. It was a surprise move as I never bought a Nokia phone, ever since I started using the cell phone a decade back. I bought it at dealer's price and so it costed me less than the market price of a little over 1500 UAE Dirhams. E71 has everything I need plus some real goodies like the Nokia Maps, Scanner and Call Manager. The net surfing is easy and the search for a hotspot is quick. It has a full keyboard and that makes typing easy. It's not a touchscreen phone, but frankly I have had enough of it with my O2. The camera is just ok but I rarely use the same in mobile phones. All in all a great business phone!

If you, too, are looking for a new phone my advice is simple-

a) Identify your usage: There's no use buying an 8 megapixels camera phone if you don't plan to share your pictures.
b) Stick to the basics: Call quality comes first and rest everything is secondary.
c) Budget is important: Why spend a fortune on a phone when you plan to retire it after a couple of years. Buy sensibly!