COMPARATIVE TEST

How Smart Are They?

A Comparative Analysis of 16 GSM Mobile Handsets

WSome of you could be reading this on your phone. Hence, there is little point in repeating clichéd lines like smartphones are the ‘in’ thing and they are important because you can use so many applications. The dilemma in your mind today is not about should you buy a smartphone; the question is which one you should buy – as per needs as well as budget. With this in focus, here we reproduce International Consumer Research and Testing’s (ICRT) test report on 16 models of GSM smartphones from six popular brands and leave it to you to decide which one works best for you.

e have not given rankings to the tested phones and cannot rate any one the best or the worst – a particular feature or quality of one may be the best, while it may also have another feature that is below par. The comparative analysis in this report has been made on parameters that matter to most of us – and these include efficiency, battery life, storage capacity, design and durability.

The OS

Once upon a time, the mobile handsets space was dominated by Nokia phones that ran on Symbian operating systems (OS). At that time only the techies knew what Symbian meant; for the rest of the world it was just software.

Today, phones run on several operating systems and most people know what’s running their devices – Android, Windows, Blackberry, or iOS. Before buying a smartphone, it is important to know which operating

system runs it – it not only lets you understand the overall dynamics of the device, but also runs the apps. Not all apps are compatible with all OS; in fact Apple has the largest app store followed by Android, while Windows is catching up with the maximum additions on a daily basis.