blackberry, iphone and droid, oh my!
as a visit to any electronics or wireless phone store makes clear, you’ve got a large—sometimes overwhelming—range of smart phone choices, priced from around $100 to $600, according to this month’s illinois cpa society magazine, insight.
this includes the highly visible blackberries and apple iphones, along with a plethora of makes and models from vendors like htc, motorola, nokia, palm and samsung. and there’s quite a choice of potential carriers as well, including at&t, sprint, t-mobile, verizon, and sundry smaller players and resellers.
factors that should drive your smart phone decision include,
- which phones and carriers will support the apps you need?
- which phones include the functional features you’ll need to deal with business outside of the office, for instance camera, video, keyboard, minimum display size, battery run-time?
- which carriers offer coverage where you need it? for instance, do you expect to travel outside the united states, and if so, do you want to use a single phone?
- will you need to “tether”—in other words, let your notebook or netbook (or other smart-phone users) access and use the smart phone’s broadband data connection, via a cable, bluetooth and/or wifi? (not all carriers offer plans that allow this.)
more at the illinois cpa society’s insight magazine article: smart phone iq – insight – may june 2010.
free download: get the bay street group white paper cited by insight here (pdf, 17 pages).
related: four safety tips for smart smartphone use