What to look for:
So you’re a writer, journalist, researcher
or artists. You need a portable record-keeper, as much as anything else.
Perhaps a voice recorder, note taker, sketchpad, camera and handy synching
service. A lot of this can be handled conveniently using apps that work across
all smartphone and desktop platforms. Evernote and Dropbox, for example,
seamlessly provide exactly this sort of setup as long as you have a phone that
supports it. I’ve found it possible to embed a voice that I’m recording, while
taking pictures on the camera phone and writing notes at events, using
Evernote, for example, so it’s very flexible. It’s worth keeping in mind that
you’ll need a pro subscription to Evernote if you want to sync over 3G.
OneNote, preinstalled on Windows Phone, is similarly useful. Now, running
several of these apps at once can be quite challenging for your phone’s
processor, and in addition you need enough storage space for documents, camera
shots, voice memos, and the software itself. So you can’t get away with a cheap
phone. Most cheap phones lack an LED flash, which would mean no night shots:
for anyone needing a multipurpose creative tool, it may be necessary to spend a
little.
A stylus can be a useful addition to your
smartphone’s arsenal, whether you get one inbuilt or opt for one that you buy
separately. It can enable light and deft touch to anything hand-drawn or
written, especially on a smaller screen. While both iOS and Android come with
preinstalled apps for taking notes, you’ll need to download any sketching,
voice recording or synching apps. Podcasters, too, are well served with
downloadable apps on either OS. It’s worth grabbing an extra camera app over
and above the preinstalled app if your journaling, in whatever form, includes
pictures snapped during your daily activities or while pursuing hobbies.
Writers, in particular, should consider fast typing assistant apps, such as
Swype or SwiftKey, or even a phone with a physical keyboard.
PC World recommends:
The Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note II have a
built-in stylus, great camera, and a sensitive screen. You can take handwritten
notes, and handwriting recognition is built into the messaging and note-taking.
It also has a sketching software app included. If the Note is a little too
pricey for your budget, then the HTC 8S might be a good option it doesn’t have
a stylus, but its OneNote app easily handles text, sounds and images for
ongoing records.
OneNote,
preinstalled on Windows Phone, is similarly useful
Socializer
What to look for:
Social media junkie? You’re going to want a
phone that has social media options deeply integrated into it. All smartphones
will allow you to share a photo directly from your photo gallery, but how
complicated is it to send a tweet or post a status update? And what are the
apps like for each platform?
Using Twitter is a relatively pleasant
experience on Android, iOS, and Windows Phone, especially since you can get a
multitude of alternative apps if you don’t like the official one. HootSuite,
Tweetbot, and Seesmic are all solid alternatives (although only Seesmic is
available on Windows Phone).
The world’s most popular social network,
however, is a bit more complicated. The Facebook app for iOS is good. The app
for Windows Phone is also fairly swift and clean. But the Android version of
the software has incredibly slow loading times, if it chooses to load at all,
so we can’t recommend Android devices if Facebook is your killer social media
app.
There are third-party apps for Facebook on
Android, however. Again, Seesmic might be a viable alternative. If you want an
Android device, you might want to check out alternative apps for Facebook and
see if you like any of those better.
Finally, if you’re addicted to ‘pinning’,
you’re going to have to go for iOS or Android – Pinterest is yet to release an
app for Windows Phone.
PC World recommends:
Given that most Kiwis only use Facebook for
social media, we pick HTC’s Windows Phone 8S. Windows Phone may not have a lot
of third-party options, but it does have deep Facebook integration that makes
it very easy to check what friends are up to post a status update, or view the
latest photos on your Facebook feed.
Windows Phone 8 has also fine-tuned social
media integration this time adding your Facebook account to your phone no
longer means permanently adding every single friend toy our contact book.
If you use more than one social network,
however, an iPhone might be your best bet. It has a wider breadth of apps both
official and third party than any other platform, and most of them are highly
functional.
If
you use more than one social network, however, an iPhone might be your best bet
Fashion savant
What to look for:
So you’re all about style, dahling nothing
wrong with that, but you might as well get a phone that looks good and runs
well. There are plenty of them out there nowadays.
If you’re the kind of person who has to
coordinate your outfit down to the last detail, thing like shape, weight and
size will be important to you when picking a phone.
But given that there are loads of thin,
light, sleek devices on the market in New Zealand, there’s really only one
major differentiating factor: color.
It seems color is in this season. Gone are
the days when you smartphone options were black, white, or tacky. Between the
launch of Nokia’s new Lumias, HTC’s Windows Phones, and some of Samsung’s
Galaxy range, you can choose from just about any color of the rainbow.
Once you’ve chosen a handset, you might
want a case, too – the iPhone has by far the best range of cases available,
particularly in New Zealand, but the Samsung Galaxy S III has a variety of
options available too.
But that’s just the hardware what about
your home screen and your lock screen? Any Android phone is going to give you
more option for customization than an iPhone or Windows Phone, so you can get
your Droid looking just the way you want it. HTC’s phones even come with a
range of New Zealand-specific wallpapers of you to choose from – if you want a
picture of Rangitoto at sunset as your lock screen, the HTC Sensation has got
your back.
HTC Also has the very fashionable Beast
Audio logo slapped on the back of the phones, but unfortunately, the phones
sold in NZ only come with Beats ear-buds, rather than the bigger closed
headphones you might have seen people wearing down the street.
PC World recommends:
The Sony Xperia U has impeccable build
quality, and looks sleek and stylish. It runs the highly customizable Android,
so you can get it to look however you want. What sold us on its fashion cred,
however, was the fact that it has a colored cap on the bottom that can be
removed and replaced with a different color. It’s easy and you don’t risk doing
any damage to the device by doing so. You can literally coordinate your phone
with your outfit as often as you like – can’t get much more vogue than that.
The
Sony Xperia U has impeccable build quality, and looks sleek and stylish.
The phone also comes in at just $399, and
for that you get a high-performance device. Just don’t store too many pictures
of shoes on your phone you’ve only got 8GB of storage to work with.
