How important are our
smart phones? Just consider how much we’re spending on them. The average
American household shelled out more than $1,500 on phones and phone service in
2012, and the biggest spenders easily blew through twice that amount. Over all,
spending on wireless services was up by 7 percent over 2011, even though many
households cut just about every other expenditure they could.
Smart-phone displays have grown in size
and responsiveness, increasing versatility and ease of use
Part of that spending
spree came as owners of basic cell phones continued to trade up to their first
smart phones, those Web-connected combinations of phone, mini-computer, and
micro compact camera. About 70 percent of our readers who responded to our
annual survey on cellphone service now own a smart phone, up from about 50
percent only two years ago.
Upgrading from a plain
cell phone at a major carrier isn’t cheap. You have to buy the smart phone itself
(usually $100 to $400 when signing a two-year contract) and fork over $70 to
$110 a month for a plan with data service. That’s a lot more than a basic phone
plan, which generally costs $40 to $70 a month.
Even if you already
own a smart phone, you might be tempted by the charms of a later model. The
best of the new phones – including the Apple iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy SIII
and Note II- offer better cameras, bigger and more responsive screens, and
faster processors for speedier Web access and app performance.
Cell-phone service
remains among the lowest-rated of those evaluated by the Consumer Reports
National search Center. Yet the experiences of the 63,000 respondents to this
year’s survey offer glimmers of improvement.
Cell-phone service remains among the
lowest-rated of those evaluated by the Consumer Reports National search Center
As in years past,
giant Verizon and smaller Consumer Cellular and U.S. Cellular stood out from
the pack for satisfying customers with standard service. But there was also
good news for subscribers to the other major carriers – AT&T, Sprint, and
T-Mobile. Customers of all three who owned phones that connect to faster 4G
networks (as does almost every phone they now sell under contract) were
consistently more satisfied than subscribers with 3G who remain in the cellular
slow lane.
Even the
long-suffering patrons of lower-rated AT&T had something positive to
report: they had the fewest problems-interrupted, downgraded, slow, or no
service-with 4G service of any carrier.
Plans cost the same
for 4G-capable and 3G-capable phones, but faster phones and faster connections
can lead to higher bills. The two biggest carriers, AT&T and Verizon, have
dropped their unlimited data plans for new customers, just as more people are
buying smart phones and 4G networks allow you to tear through the megabytes.
For example, in a 2011 study of 185,000 phone lines by Validas, a company that
tracks cell usage and recommends plan facings, owners of the HTC Thunderbolt,
and older 4G smart phone, used an average of 1GB of data per month. That’s
almost double the 565MB average usage by owners of iPhones, all of which
accessed only 3G networks at the time of the study.
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Plans cost the same for 4G-capable and
3G-capable phones, but faster phones and faster connections can lead to higher
bills.
Many smart-phone
owners may be unaware of all the ways their usage patterns can run up data
consumption. And it’s not only data charges driving up costs. Carriers continue
to swell bills with pesky charges such as a new-phone upgrade fee of $30 at
Verizon; AT&T has pushed its own upgrade fee from $18 to $36
It’s little wonder
that for the first half of 2012, AT&T and Verizon were crowing to investors
about profit margins of 41 and 50 percent, respectively. The latter isn’t just
a Verizon record. “It’s one of the highest ever recorded for wireless carriers
around the world,” says P. Cusick, the telecom stock analyst for J.P.Morgan.
AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile 4G users
were happier than 3G users.
There are few signs
that consumers won’t pay for better phones and better service, but we offer
ways to save and be more satisfied, too-no matter what phone and plan you
choose.
Phones get smarter
Although they’ve
achieved a high standard, smart phones vary in performance and price, even
among the recommended models in the Ratings.
Displays
get better and bigger.
Within the past year,
more phones have sharper displays, with 720p resolution and higher pixel counts
per inch. They’re also more accurate with colors and easier to read in bright
light. And typical screen size is edging up, with a norm of at least 4.3 inches
for our recommended models.
The Samsung Galaxy Note II, whose
5.5-inchh display is the new size champion among phones, and the LG Intuition,
a 5-incher
Two new phones
exemplify how manufacturers are making the extra real estate of the biggest screens
work better for the user. The Samsung Galaxy Note II, whose 5.5-inchh display is
the new size champion among phones, and the LG Intuition, a 5-incher. Both let
you write with a finger or stylus on top of photos, calendar appointments,
e-mail messages, or other displayed content and share the content and share the
content and note as an image via email, messaging, or social networks. In
portrait mode, phones also allow you to shrink the keyboard and slide it to
either side of the screen to help smaller thumbs reach the farthest keys.
Cameras
improve.
Despite having much
tinnier lenses and image sensors, the best smart-hone cameras challenge
subcompact cameras and compact camcorders in image quality. That said
smart-phone cameras have limits. Their performance in low light is generally
worse than that of stand-alone cameras, and they have a slower maximum frame
rate than camcorders (30 frames per second vs. 60 fps), resulting in less
fluidity in video images. And so far no smart phone offer optical zoom-lens
capability, although rising resolution (8 megapixels or more on many phones)
should limit the degradation in quality as images are enlarged.
More smart
phones, fewer exclusives.
The basic cell phone
isn’t dead, but its smart sibling is edging it out. The major carriers now
offer only a handful of basic phones, most of them sold by their prepaid
subsidiaries or partners. And many basic models sold with contracts cost almost
as much as an entry-level smart phone. Six of 10 basic phones from Verizon, for
example, cost $80 or more with a two-year contract.
More smart phones, fewer exclusives.
Even many cell phones
from prepaid carriers such as Virgin Mobile and Tracfone are now less basic, adding
features such as Web browsers and app stores that require data service. And the
simple smart phones that prepaid carriers mostly offer are increasingly
supplemented by some marquee models.
There’s also less
exclusivity. Carriers still have some phones that are theirs alone- Motorola’s
top-of-the-line Droid Razrs are sold only by Verizon, for example-but fewer
than in the past. The days when iPhones, for example, were available only from
AT&T are long gone. The iPhone 5 is now available from three of four major
carriers as well as prepaid carrier Cricket. The highly rated Samsung Galaxy
SIII is offered as well as Credo Mobile and U.S. Cellular, smaller carriers
that got high marks in our Ratings. You can also get it prepaid from MetroPCS.
