by Fredrick Obura

Recently, I received a cold call from a sales agent who wanted to sell me a particular handset. She impressed upon me the packed benefits, wireless Internet service, browser and email capability, and so on.

Nothing new of course, it happens every week, on the billboards, television, magazine and online advertisement, the market is now awash with different phone makes.

"I don’t need this. Sorry. Thank you. bye," I responded. It is sometimes difficult to find unbiased information from the commercial attacks. Buyers, however, find it difficult to make informed choices.

"There are buyers who don’t know what they want in their phone," says Samsung phone co-ordinator, East and Central Africa Martin Njoroge.

Top-notch brands such as Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG and Motorola make handsets at regular intervals. The latest handsets on the shelf are blended with style and high-end functionality.

Always after deciding on a provider and plan, finding the best phone to fit one’s lifestyle is the next stop. There are phones targeting each category of consumers.

Phone manufacturers have different classes of consumers in mind and that is why a company may categorise its products into style, multimedia, infotainment, essential, connected and business.

Irrespective of the category a buyer falls in, features like charger, mobile tracker and longer battery life should be primary.

To this category, multi-tasking is a way of life. There is so much to do, and such little time to accomplish them. A device that suits your busy lifestyle should be an all-in-one phone, a phone that can do just about everything, a gadget that can save you the additional bulk of lugging the laptop and PDA. But software applications and battery life are just as important to ensure you work through the night.

"Consider a dual SIM handset, the new dual SIM bar means business and its top skill is well tucked under the battery. What you get is quality of build, large keyboard and a friendly handling," says Mr Njoroge.

Some of the features of a dual SIM handset include two different cards active at same time, micro-SD memory expansion, FM radio, Bluetooth with A2DP, MS Office document viewer and snappy user interface.

An ideal business phone incorporates essential tools with multimedia lifestyle features. For instance, it should offer communication with Bluetooth and USB among other applications to let you easily connect to other phones, PDAs, laptops, PCs, printers. The smart Bluetooth accessories help you exchange data, pictures and video clips. You can stay connected to the world anywhere, any time.

Connected with a fairly active lifestyle, sometimes you’re not in the right environment to talk. Whether it’s just too loud in the club, during a business meeting, or spotty reception on the subways, text messaging provides a convenient way for your friends to leave you short notes that you can conveniently answer with your fingers later.

To you, function matters more than form. And you probably prefer a full QWERTY keyboard to make life easier on the thumbs. With all the text messaging jargon you go through, you have experienced the pains of predictive text and you are out for speed typing.

But that’s not all you care about. A large screen provides more lines of text to view. And multimedia messaging and a built-in camera are probably in your mind as well. Regardless, we don’t have to tell you a picture is worth a thousand words; most likely you’ve already found all the ways to speed and efficiency.

The full-size QWERTY keyboard is a widely spaced key to accommodate texting. Dolby Mobile sound brings a deep and rich listening experience while a sharp 3.2-megapixel camera with built-in flash features Intelligent Shot and Facial Makeover to improve the image quality. Other features include Bluetooth, stereo capability and web browsing.

Phones under this category should posses a faster processor, longer battery life, an internal compass, voice control features and an improved 3.0-megapixel auto-focus camera with video recording capabilities. The handset uses the OpenGL for high-quality 3D graphics for faster and improved mobile gaming. Users can watch more videos, listen to more music, browse the Internet or use their favourite applications.

The iPhone 3GS for instance supports 7.2 Mbps HSDPA for faster networking speeds. It can cut, copy and paste text. It features a new built-in digital compass for instant navigation.

The compass shows travelers, which way they are headed and rotates as they change direction. It is also integrated within maps so it automatically orients any map to the direction they are facing.

BUsing IMES identification that each phone has, you can trace a phone .

The IMES code is individual to each phone. When you lose your phone, you can refer the code to your network provider to trace back the cell phone, or at least block the apparatus.