Post edited 12:17 pm – September 12, 2011 by Joe Pappano

Don’t yet own a smartphone? Read this post to learn why you should leave behind your feature phone and get a smartphone.

Written by: Pragati Jain

Smartphones are one of the fastest growing segments of the mobile device market. They are inexpensive compared to feature phones but offer a host of features like high-resolution cameras, touch screens, GPS navigation, email, multimedia, and web browsers.  Like a computer, the smartphone’s processor is the main computing element that defines its performance.  This is an important parameter to consider when deciding which smartphone is right for you.

Some of the key offerings of a smartphone are:

1.) Rich Visual User Experience: High resolution touch screens and fast processor speeds provide the smartphone users with a good user experience. Processor speed increases the responsiveness of applications while high resolution touch screens ensure a good image quality. Also smartphones have a long battery life and a QWERTY keyboard for easy typing.

2.) Portable and Personal organizer: Lets you organize your contacts, notes, schedules, and appointments in an easy and efficient manner. You can set multiple alerts and reminders for chores. Also, many smartphones allow users to customize their home screens to help them organize and track frequently used documents.

3.) Get Connected Anytime, Anywhere:  Unlike the feature phones, the smartphones support push email technology. Thus, as soon as an email reached your server Inbox, it is pushed to your phone. Having email access on the phone allows you to do business and manage your projects on the go and facilitates a better work/life balance. Also, on syncing the smartphone to the corporate mail servers, upcoming calendar events and contacts are synced up on the phone. If required, you can also read documents in Adobe PDF files, WordPerfect, Excel, send e-faxes, print and more.

4.) Amazing Web Experience: If your smartphone is connected to Internet, either over a wireless connection or a 2G/3G connection, you can experience an amazing web experience. You can tweet, update your Facebook status, chat over Yahoo Messenger or Skype with friends and family at any time, stream videos from Youtube or any other site, download files or look up information on the web using your smartphone.

5.) Wholesome Entertainment Package: Waiting at the Doctor’s clinic with not much to do? Well, you can kill boredom and entertain yourself by watching movies, listening to music, downloading and playing games from the App Store, streaming videos from YouTube, etc… all on your smartphone.

6.) Dense and Diverse Application Repository: Applications are what make smartphone “smart” and are responsible for enhancing our phone experience. The Application repository or the App Store has a plethora of applications for different segments – Entertainment, News, Games, Recipes, Organizers, Security etc. If you are on the road, you may download apps for making your reservations, checking travel directions, listening to podcasts, converting currency on international holidays or sharing snaps with family and friends. Cooking enthusiasts may download apps for viewing recipes for different international cuisines. Music lovers may download apps for customizing Internet radio, decoding the lyrics of a song or keeping track of upcoming live shows or music shows in your area. There are many great educational apps for children to hone their mathematical and analytical skills. Thus, there are apps for every need; you just need to dive in and dig them out.

From my experience, once you start owning a Smartphone, it will be hard to live without it! These smart devices are must have in everyone’s pocket.