Cell Phone Shopping

By Tanisa Brown

Staying Organized

Who would have thought that cell phones would become so technologically advanced. You can do everything on your cell phone from taking pictures, to watching videos to sending eFaxes. Therefore, one of the first questions you might want to ask yourself is what are you going to use your cell phone for (other than of course using your cell to make phone calls)?

As a freelancer in the film industry, I upgraded my cell phone to a smartphone because I desperately needed to have email access during the day. I lost one too many jobs and interviews due to my inability to step away from a film set to run off and check my emails on a laptop. With my BlackBerry Pearl, I can have emails sent directly to my cell phone. I'm alerted immediately and can reply quickly and easily; especially if I need to confirm my availability to work on the next film shoot. It's perfect and I don't miss out on job opportunities anymore!

Likewise, if you find yourself needing to constantly communicate with employees, co-workers, clients and vendors, smartphones and PDA's are terrific. Not only can you have features like checking your emails, but you can also browse the web, stay organized with a calendar, read Adobe PDF files, view email attachments, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and zip files. Your cell phone can truly be your mini office away from the office. At the end of the day, go ahead and sync up all your important data from your wireless device right to your computer or laptop. Just check to see which application software is available for your phone.

For Fun and Play

If you are looking for something more fun and interactive, multimedia phones are excellent. Watch your favorite music videos, listen to music, and play interactive games all on your phone. Just be sure to buy a cell phone that's dedicated to multimedia support like the V CAST from Verizon or the Apple iPhone. The reason being is that cell phones specialized in multimedia support are better equipped to hold more memory for storing music, have higher speed downloads and can play bigger media files.

Camera Phones

If you want to take quality pictures, then I suggest you buy a really good digital camera. But seriously, if you like taking a bunch of pictures with your cell phone, then do your research. Some of the things to check for with camera phones are the number of pixel resolution, length of video recordings, if it has white balance, image editor, multi-shot, digital zoom, self timer, flash, video capture/camcorder, etc. Now, I wouldn't exactly say there are cell phones that are specifically designed for picture taking, but there are some camera phones that will give you a better quality than others. Again, do your research to find the features you want to have with a camera phone.

All in one phone

If you want your cell phone to have all of the above you can! However, if you are buying a cell phone for a specific need, don't skimp. My BlackBerry Pearl works just fine for me to check my emails as a freelancer, but if I was constantly traveling internationally as part of my job and needed global support, this model phone wouldn't cut it.

Once you decide which phone is right for you, be sure to shop around to get the best deals. The more technologically advanced you need a cell phone to be, the more you will have to spend for those sweet techie features.