Everything is going smart these days. We have smart TVs, smart cars and the most obvious one, smart phones. What really is the meaning of “smart?” Are these items actually “intelligent” or do you have to be “smart” to use them? I would say it is a mixture of the two. “Smart” phones are probably the most intriguing of the cell phones that are out there. They have leap frogged the “feature” phone in terms of popularity – a feature phone is what I consider a “dumb” phone where the functionality of the device is pretty much just to make/receive calls and texts. There are probably a few more features that make them as good “starter” phones. However, because the price of smart phones has dropped so much recently, you might want to spend a little bit more and get a phone with brains.

How do you choose the right smartphone though, now that you have made the decision to get one? What do you look for? What are the most important advantages or disadvantages of a particular platform (think Apple’s iOS , Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7)? Do note that there are other platforms available, but these 3 are probably the ones that 1) I’m most familiar with and 2) are the most popular.

Choosing the right platform is the first part of your “smart” decision. First, you need to do a bit of introspection to understand what you can handle. Here are some to get you down that decision-tree path:

• Do you like to tinker with things and have more control over your environment? (Try Android)
• Do you want things to simply work with little or no customization? (Try Apple iOS)
• Do you want tight integration with other Windows devices? (Try Windows Phone 7)

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