Smartphone Buying Guide July 2011

One of the most useful tools that you are going to need living in Shanghai, or anywhere else for that matter, is your trusty cell phone. If you’re new here and are looking to jump on the smartphone wagon, or if you’re looking to replace your old device, you might find that buying a smartphone here can be a hassle. Have no fear, because we’ve compiled a list below of the most popular smartphones, along with their prices and specifications.

We will first talk about the operating systems.

An operating system is software that essentially runs the phone. Each of these operating systems offers a significantly different user experience. Here is some basic information about each of the major operating systems.

Android: Android is a mobile operating system developed by Google. Due to its open-source nature, it has been widely used by many different phone manufacturers. Consequently, there is bound to be a phone for every kind of user. Also, each phone-maker usually adds a custom user-interface, making the user’s smartphone experience vastly different. However, due to these vast differences in software (user interfaces, preinstalled software) and hardware, the quality of the phone can range from poor to excellent. Another drawback is that operating system updates are sporadic and at the whims of the manufacturer/carrier.

iOS: Developed by Apple exclusively for its handhelds, iOS is the most mature and popular of the smartphone operating systems. The App Store generally has extremely high quality applications, due mainly to Apple’s rigorous certification process. Also, iPhones will get around two years of operating system updates. iPhone users will arguably get the most consistent performance/experience.

Windows Phone 7: Microsoft also wanted a slice of the smartphone pie, and recently launched their Windows Phone 7. However, at the time of this writing, Windows Phone 7 has yet to gain any significant traction, and the operating system is not as mature as its competitors. Until Windows takes a more significant market share, we won’t include their phones in our lineup.

BlackBerry OS: developed by Research In Motion exclusively for Blackberry devices. The current version of BlackBerry OS is 6, with version 7 coming out sometime in 2011. Blackberry OS is known for support of corporate email.

What the specifications mean?
Processor: Essentially, the more powerful the processor, the faster your phone will work. Right now, most of the phones in this list are hovering around the 1 GHz (1000 MHz) range. There are a few phones shown that are even dual-core (usually 1GHz * 2 or 1.2 GHz * 2), which make them significantly more powerful. However, there are not too many applications designed specifically for these monsters.

RAM: Also known as Random Access Memory. Again, having more RAM makes running applications/movies/games much smoother. Most smartphones in this list have more than 512 MB of RAM, but as seen in the case of the iPhone, even 512MB will provide a very good smartphone experience.

Storage: All smartphones have varying amounts internal storage. However, not all phones allow external storage, i.e., the iPhone. Because space is extremely important, especially with today’s media-heavy smartphones, having enough gigabytes is an important factor to consider when buying your smartphone.

Camera: Most phones now have pretty decent cameras, but do not be tricked into thinking that more mega-pixels equal better photos. If you really want to take photos, it’s important to compare the image quality of the phones you are considering.

As you can see below, the prices can vary a lot online. This is because the phones in the cheaper price spectrum are probably Shui Huo. Shui Huo essentially means that they are, for the lack of a better word, smuggled to China from places like Hong Kong. Therefore, they do not have the same warranty as you would have if you buy Hang Huo, which is the official Chines version. Hang Huo will give you the full warranty as specified by the receipt. Another thing to keep in mind is that the prices given for phones in-store are the initial asking prices. If you are good at bargaining, you might be able to slash a few hundred RMB from some of the phones.
Also, make your that you do a research about the phone before going to the tech mall, as many salesmen (which we know are a slippery bunch), will try to pull you toward their booth, and perhaps try to sell you knockoffs and/or second-hand & refurbished models.