What smartphone would you like to carry around in your pocket? Well, the answer to this question is, for many, probably the latest flagship phone released this year by Samsung, Google, LG, Huawei, perhaps even Xiaomi or Nokia. Of course, these are all great handsets and give you good value for the money you pay for them… but think of all the other ways you could use the money you might want to spend on a high-end, desirable smartphone. Some of them are expensive enough to buy you a cheap car, others could cover a year’s worth betting at Betway pretty easily. So, think again: what is the smartphone that you want? These tips will help you choose right.
Your budget
How much can you afford to spend on a smartphone?
Of course, telecoms will gladly help you out with a friendly payment plan if you sign a contract with them for a year or two but are you sure it’s worth tieing yourself to an operator – and having to use the same phone – for that long? After all, subscriptions change, phones break, and if you’re not careful, you might end up paying a mobile subscription with a nice, expensive but broken phone without the possibility to change it for quite some time.
Your needs
Do you plan to play on your phone? If so, what games?
Most average mobile games will work perfectly well on a mid-range handset and many of them will run decently – or even perfectly – on an entry-level phone. Just like in the case of personal computers, it’s the games that require the most processing power on smartphones, so if you don’t plan on playing anything beyond Candy Crush, casino slots or similar, lightweight games, there’s no reason for you to invest in a high-power smartphone. Especially if its price is big enough to buy you a laptop.
Don’t rush
You may be an early adopter, eager to try the latest innovative features on your phone… only to see that the infrastructure needed for these features to function is nowhere to be found in your area. Some people have invested heavily in phones with NFC at the time they first emerged only to find that they can’t use it to pay and neither does it prove useful in transferring files between phones. The same goes for 5G, for example.
5G phones will be one of the biggest things next year – but don’t rush to buy the latest 5G phone as soon as they emerge. Nigeria will be ready to roll out its first 5G network by 2020 so if you buy the first 5G phone next year, it will be outdated by the time you’ll be able to use its most attractive feature.
When choosing your next smartphone, choose wisely, keeping in mind that you will most likely want to switch to a new one in as little as a year.