Don’t you just hate it when you’re on the road and your primary means of contact goes dead on you. Literally.
Here were some tips I considered on the basic features that you might need to consider when shopping for a mobile phone with a travel lifestyle in mind. I, first considered functionality and hand coordination above all else (*ofcourse), then ran down the important features. Be nice to yourself, and remember — any gadget should be of your necessity and comfort.
I’ve long moved on. My contacts had vanished along with loads of pictures, videos, and memos on that phone. I have been sporting a new phone, and yes, I am a Samsung user, still, but have long been a convert to QWERTY keypads. I am still weighing the option on, possibly, shifting to touch screens. But my hand coordination will die struggling on that. iP is tempting — for all its glorious features but it’s not smart for me to travel with it given my careless “Where did I left my phone moments?” and to go on the road with some flashy cellular phone, when half of the time I just throw it around (like, literally).
in a non-techy girl translation.
WiFi technology falls here. It provides short-range wireless high-speed data connections between mobile data devices (such as laptops, PDAs or phones) and nearby Wi-Fi access points. You get to connect to the internet whenever there’s a Wifi spot or connection.
High-speed data transfer = increase performance. It means it will delivers higher bit-rates per radio channel, resulting in a threefold increase in capacity and performance compared with an ordinary GSM/GPRS connection.
This used to be an emerging trend but has evolved to a must-have feature to get real-time position tracking, text- and voice-guided directions, and points of interest in applications.
Usually depends on whether you’re an Android, BlackBerry, or iPhone user, there’s Windows Mobile, iPhone 2.0, and Android to Symbian, BlackBerry, and Palm. So what’s the use of it? The saleslady I asked was not helpful. But your mobile OS, actually, will reflect your lifestyle because it determines the choice of apps and phone functionality. There are a growing trend of apps for travel and photography sharing — it makes it easy to get people updated with what’s keeping you busy at wherever you’re at. But for this, also consider that Android, Palm webOS, and iPhone OS are frequently updated with new software features, followed by BlackBerry and Windows Mobile updates. Symbian is updated irregularly and installing the latest update is not as suave as the others update.
Other features and specifications like body dimensions, sound and display, memory and data transfer, and battery life — that you can consider on your own preferences. Coming from some non-techy Pinay Travelista, I hope some of the features to consider for a travelers mobile phone comes in helpful. It sure did for me!
So how did my day ended up then? My brother decided to take my mom on a bend, and saw me looking for a phone on a shelf of one of the shops. So it saved me the trouble of finding a fox or dove to deliver my message, or the disappointment that both my mom and brother don’t know how to read smoke signals. Did I get a new phone then? Nope. My non-techy brain did say not yet. I sulked and grieved for 3 days – for the phone that died on me on the road, before getting a new one. And it took me 3 months to put this one up. Am I happily adjusted with my new phone ? Yes but I could only wish for one thing — for it to have fine focus for macro shots the way it’s predecessor did.