Smartphones

You work for a living, right? You probably need to have a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) to keep track of all your contacts, expenses, and busy schedule. Yet carrying a PDA in addition to your mobile phone is cumbersome. Well, there’s a way you can lighten your load—the type of all-in-one gadget known as a smartphone. A smartphone combines an organizer, email, and more often than not some productivity applications, and yes, even a phone. Smartphones are basically very small, full-blown computers and most allow you to load applications onto them. You can load productivity applications, word processors, spreadsheets and even games.

Be aware that if you get a smartphone, there will probably be a learning curve. Even smart phones with very intuitive interfaces have a learning curve. In other words, you might have to practice with your smart phone to master its features, or even read the manual. This time invested will be well rewarded, however, as once you master your smartphone, using it properly will make you more productive.

Can you remember what life was like before cell phones? Yet today, even inexpensive cell phones are actually a lot more powerful computers than that desktop machine you had in 1990. Most users don’t tap the full power of ordinary cell phones, let alone a smartphone. Nonetheless, there are many programs and services available should you choose to use them. Among the most useful is the calendar/day planner. Many phones allow you to access your email, provided the network coverage includes it. If you have kids with cell phones, they’ll probably install games on their cell phones.

A 2005 survey published in Consumer Reports, about a third of the 200 million cell phone users in the USA are so dissatisfied with their mobile phone service they are considering switching to another mobile network provider. Calls are dropped for no apparent reason, and spotty network coverage means that even in a major city, where you stand may make a striking difference in how good your coverage is—or whether it exists at all. You might have a strong signal in your living room and no signal in your bedroom. You’d think that the industry, as riddled with problems as it is, would be unable to survive—yet cell phones remain wildly popular.

In the USA you can move your phone number from one provider to the next quite easily. However, unlike other countries, chances are you won’t be able to take your phone along with you when you switch. Normally you buy your handset from the network provider when you sign up for service. The reason for the incompatibility is simple—mobile network providers want to keep making money from you. They make it hard to switch. In spite of all this, cell phones have just about moved out of the ‘want’ category and into the ‘need’ category.