Cell Phone Features

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If you’ve decided to get a new cell phone it’s important to know what features are available to help you decide which features you need, which features you want, and which you don’t.

Display Screen

The display screen in combination with the keypad is going to be the most used parts of your phone. The screen comes in two different varieties, color and monochromatic. Monochromatic screens usually have black text on a gray screen. Depending on the backlighting they may illuminate in a blue or bluish-green glow. This is the most basic type of display, but it is capable of displaying text only. A color display screen is a more recent offering. They are usually capable of displaying over 65,000 different colors. This type of screen allows you to view pictures or surf the internet. Phones with color screens are more expensive than monochromatic screens. However they also use more power, so make sure that the phone has a long life or lithium ion battery. The second aspect of the display screen is size. This is usually expressed in pixels. Most phones come with displays in the 130 x 130 range. Most computer screens are 800 x 600 or more, so it’s easy to see how the amount of information on a cell phone screen would be reduced. There are high end or specialty phones with display sizes of 640 x 200 or larger but these are very specialized cutting edge phones. This is important if you plan to use your phone to surf the internet regularly.

Keypads

The keypad on a cellular phone can come in different arrangements. The most common is the standard numeric keypad, consisting of 0-9, # and *. The letters are accessed by pressing the keys multiple times. For example A = 1 press, B = 2 presses, C = 3 presses, and so on. If you plan on using your phone to send text messages, you’ll see how inefficient this solution is. So cellular manufacturers solved the problem two ways, first with predictive text and then with full keyboards. Phones with a full keyboard have the standard keys from a normal keyboard arranged QWERTY style. These phones are usually larger and have some sort of flip out design allowing the keyboard to exist underneath or hidden in the phone, reducing the phone to a manageable size. Unless the phone is a very basic phone it, will also come with some form of cursor control. This could be small joystick or rocker key that allows you to push in any for directions (up, down, left, right). Generally these keys are used to access the menus allowing you to reach the different functions, programs, or different settings on the phone.

Antenna

Antennas come in three different styles, the oldest type being extendable. An extendable antenna is one where you must pull it up and out of the phone for it to have its maximum range. The next is fixed length. Fixed length antennas are small little nubs that extend usually off the top of the phone. Inside of the nub is long coiled piece of metal. It’s longer than an extendable antenna but more tightly wound. The next is an internal antenna where the antenna is actually inside of the phones body. For most people in area with good coverage a fixed length of internal antenna is the best choice. However in areas with poor coverage you can actually get better reception with an extendable antenna.

Battery

Batteries come in three different types. The first and least expensive type of battery is Nickel Cadmium (NiCad). They give the shortest battery life and suffer from the “memory effect” and need to be completed discharged from time to time, so they will be able to hold a maximum charge. The next type of battery is Nickel metal hydride (NIMH). NIMH batteries are more expensive but don�t suffer the memory effect that plagued NiCad batteries. The next type of battery is Lithium Ion (Li-Ion). The battery is able to provide more power with less weight and size as compared to NiCad batteries, however they are more expensive. If you have a small or ultra-small style phone or a phone with a large or color display it will usually have a Li-ion battery. Some manufacturers are experimenting with lithium polymer (li-poly) or fuel cells for phones. However as of this writing, they are being used in a very limited number of high end phones.

Signal Strength Indicator

This is usually displayed with antenna symbol and bars of progressively increasing height on the display screen. The more bars the stronger the signal strength. Signal strength is not an indicator of call clarity.

Battery Life Indicator

This is another graphic usually shown on the display screen. It usually consists of anywhere from 3 to 10 bars in battery symbol indicating how much charge the battery has in it. The more bars, the longer the battery can go before needing to be recharged.

Voice activated dialing

This allows you to say something like ‘call home’ your phone will ‘recognize’ this and automatically dial your ‘home’ number. This is usually a limit to how many numbers can have voice dialing associated with them.

Phone Book

This is the amount of names/numbers you can store in your cellular phone. This is limited by the amount of memory available in your phone.

PDA

PDA or Personal Digital Assistant allows you to synchronize your phone with your computers phonebook, calendar, task list and notepad. This allows your phone to serve two purposes.

Silent or Vibration Mode

This allows you turn off your phones ringer and have the phone vibrate when you receive a call or message. Very useful when you are in a meeting, movie, show or other place where an audible ring would be inappropriate.

Ringtone

A ringtone allows you to have a customized sound instead of standard ringing sound. These have become very sophisticated in recent years allowing you play snippets of TV themes or popular music.

MP3 Player

This allows you to store songs on your cellular phone and play them back through the phones speaker or headphone jack.

Redial

This allows you to redial the number you most recently called with one button.

Speed Dial

This allows you to have a series of numbers that can be dialed by pushing one button.

Games

These are programs you can download onto your phone to keep you entertained.

Caller ID

This allows you see the number of an incoming call to decide if you want to take the call or use your voice mail.

Bluetooth

A wireless device that enable your cell phone to communicate with wide array of other blue tooth enabled equipment, hands free headsets, personal computers, laptops and PDAs.