Friday 9 January 2015

Smart Phones vs. Basic Phones




 Yeah, we all live in a frickin fast world, though I'd get an extra second this year it’s not enough. We are moving at a rapid pace towards something indefinite and undefined. To cope up with this pace, we use phones as medium of quick communication and information transfer.
And in these phones there are only three types are people.

The ones with Landline phones or the ones that WERE with landline phones. Though most of these people are dead, these phones are a Legacy.

Then those with Basic Phones, who probably had ecstatic feeling when they had bought it initially.

Oh you know the Third type, the ones with flashy cameras, large screens, data thirsty and proud phones.

Firstly let me define what smart phones and basic phones are in my view point.

Basic phones are the ones which can be said to have a physical keypad, a media player facility, a radio, a memory card slot, a 2G GPRS feature, Bluetooth and may be a very basic camera. I leave it to the reader to imagine every other possible features of these phones

Smart phones are the ones which have a large touch screen, a fancy primary camera, a probable secondary camera, Wi-Fi facility, 3G and 4G, any Smart OS like Windroid, iBerry etc., support for recent and upcoming apps, and many other features which have already popped up in your mind by now.

The Landline phones have become obsolete now, so we give them a parting bye and move on.

So basically everybody owns a Smartphone these days, even my 9 year old cousin. And me? I own a Bar, ummm a bar type phony, sorry phone.

-Accessibility
Maybe 5 years ago it would've been easier to tell the numbers, the number of smartphone users have grown and the general number of Cellphone users have increased too.
So it’s a Draw.

-Utility
You guessed it. Yes, Smartphones do win here. Apart from the usual call and text facility Smartphones have an array of applications that can be very useful. Be it the Thatsapp or the Skyte, they help you contact a very distant person instantly. Smartphones even have applications for monitoring your diet and health. A Phone even has a heartbeat monitor and a Fingerprint reader. Wow right?
Basic phones… Hey they can play music! And Call!
Smart Phones get an upper hand here.

-Usefulness
Smart phones with their large store of apps and games they may seem to be very useful, but in reality they actually deviate us from intended purpose. Instead of sending an Office file to your Boss you might end up sending Dirty jokes to him. The sheer number of applications in the phone are a distraction to us. Nobody can ignore the repeated notifications of your messaging app or your favorite Candy crash Game.
But Basic phones lack this wide range of applications which limit them to the basic functions like calling and texting. But this in itself is a drawback. In comparison to Smartphones ordinary phones are a bit lacking in features but they let you do your work.
It’s a draw again.

-Life and Durability
I give you a single hashtag.
#bendgate
There is an urban Legend that a phone has survived a bullet and saved it user.
The Legend stays.
Basic Phones Win.

-Maintenance
Smart phones are very fragile. They need a Screen guard to protect the ‘Corner Chimpanzee Glass 4’, a Hard Case to protect it from fall damage, a power bank to resupply power often. It’s tedious and you’ve got to handle it like a hot, rich girl friend.  So the maintenance is a major problem in these phones.

Basic Phones are pretty much solid next to metals. I’ve even used these phones to balance my table and I don’t think maintenance would be a major problem.

Yeah, Basic phones.

-Cost
This is
a difficult decision, but Basic phones really do win here.
There are many smart phones with Great features, functions and uses. But it all comes with a large price tag. And For every Drop you make, its life decreases by half. Smart Phones with its Accessories cost more per usage period than a Basic phone.

Though it’s an unfair comparison.
Basic phones rule.

-Technology
No Argument here. Smart phones keeps its users updated with latest OTA updates, thus making it more efficient progressively and more appealing.

Some Basic phones do have upgradable firmware, but it has no appreciable change.
Smart Phones win.

-User Experience and User Friendliness.
Smart phones give us a more visually exclusive experience. Its icons are large and easy to understand, it has various visual and aural clues and cues to help us understand the OS to full extent. Even old people find it easy to comprehend it. They even read our typing and swiping pattern and predict according to it.

Basic Phones with their Small screen are not appealing enough. The physical Keypads, though may be quicker to type, they are clunky and usually too small for human fingers. They tend to wear out.

Smart Phones are the victors.

-Data Consumption.
Smart Phones Live off the internet. Almost all smart phones these days are connected to a ‘cloud’ for data storage and transfer. Their very existence is depended upon the Internet data. Their updates, upgrades, applications are based on the internet. They use up data like rocket. Whoosh!

Basic Phones are not that data hungry. Usually they leave us with the guilt of not using it up to the data limit given. So Basic phones are more diet conscious.
Basic phones Claim it again.

So Scoring off both sides.
                                                                                                                Smarts                                  Basics
1.      Accessibility                                                                      -                                 -
2.      Utility                                                                                1                                0    
3.      Usefulness                                                                         -                                 -
4.       Life and Durability                                                         0                                1
5.       Maintenance                                                                    0                                1
6.       Cost                                                                                   0                                1
7.      Technology                                                                        1                                 0
8.       User Experience and User Friendliness.                       1                                 0
9.       Data Consumption.                                                         0                                 1
 
                                                                                            3                                 4

Smartphones - 3
Basic phones - 4
Shocking isn’t it?
Well it’s true.

But don’t be an Idiot.  Get a Smartphone. Or be old.

~Basically Smart.