Now that where to buy has been sorted, and if you have decided to take advantage of the online offers, the next is choosing a plan and a phone that is best for you, a topic dealt with below.

Choosing A Mobile Phone And A Calling Plan:
When you sign a mobile phone contract you are in most cases buying two items, the handset you choose and the network voice and/or data allowance you get with it. The best way to start is to avoid bowing to ’societal’ pressures. Let your personality and needs guide you to choosing the right combination, as any wrong mix will cost you hugely at the long run. Societal pressures may come in the form of a salesman chatting you up on the phone network website, or the one in the stores on commission pushing a particular handset at you. It can also come in the form of a friend, colleague or family member who has a handset model, and with a good intent, feels the same is the best for you.

Results from recent research carried out in the Greater London area of UK show that 79 percent of people polled under-utilize their mobile phones. 82 percent more at some point went over their monthly calling allowance plan and paid out-of-bundle fees as a result. Predominant chain of reasons behind this result was because respondents admit to choosing phones with high functionality – which they rarely used, and got very low calling plans to keep the contracted monthly fees down – a plan which often was never enough. It was therefore almost impossible not to use ‘out-of-bundle’ minutes at some point which eventually end up costing more.

Letting your personality and needs guide your decision requires considering what you do, what and how you communicate, and what phone fits in. There is no need choosing a high speed internet browsing phone with touch screen technology, push email functionality, Satnav, huge GB of memory, etc – you may not need the functions you are paying for, and may compromise on the calling plan you really need to communicate better. Where finance is an issue as with many of us in these troubling economic times, you may be better off with an adequate calling plan that suits how and what you communicate for a monthly fee closest to what you are comfortable to pay today.

Finally, don’t let latest phones be your number one guide. Remember, the latest phones of today won’t be the latest phones 3 months down the line – the technology now changes daily. However, the right and good calling and data plan – like 1000 minutes to be used anytime calling across any mobile network, plus 200 texts with unlimited landline and mobile internet usage – will remain a great deal even up to 24 months down the line.

Contracts To Rebuild Your Credit Rating
If you know you have a poor credit rating and perhaps have been refused by a particular network, do not think you can easily go to the next network and get a contract. In very rare circumstances you may succeed, but while networks are in competition with each other, in most countries they also file in reports of refused applications with credit rating agencies to help alert other networks if a reason of refusal is credit related. I have held conversation with the staff of some mobile phone networks in the UK on this matter and in this circumstance the best the networks can do is extend their services to you, so you can start rebuilding your credit worthiness, but they can only do so where the risk to the network is low

Still using the UK where are based as a case study, all the mobile phone networks here now have short term contracts, some in the form of a one month rolling contract usually SIM only, – no phones involved. With SIM only contracts the network’s risk is limited to the minutes you use and they don’t have to hand you any mobile phone. Some networks may risk signing you up on a 12 or 18 months contract with a phone, so long as the mobile phone set involved is not worth more than £100 – about US$155. An application with high calling plan which enables the phone network to recoup cost of the handset within your first 3 to 6 months on the plan also stand a chance if your credit rating situation is not too poor.

Choosing A Mobile Broadband:
With mobile broadband, it’s quite simple because you are looking at only 3 straightforward issues, coverage, monthly allowance and cost.

Coverage:
Though mobile broadband signals can be received in over 90 percent of UK populated areas at the moment, signal levels vary between the networks. All mobile broadband service providers in the UK have online coverage checker, we strongly advise that you use the online coverage checker of your preferred network before you buy, to check against the signal strength of your preferred network service at your home, office and areas you are likely to use the service

Monthly Allowance:
Depending on how much time you spend online and what you do while on the go. If you intend to use the internet just for emails, and especially if you have a fixed broadband at home, you may go for 1GB monthly allowance, otherwise you are advised not to settle for a 1GB data allowance – it’s rarely enough, even the daily updates of the anti-virus software alone running on your system and other activities rarely under your user control will almost use up your 1GB allowance by the end of the month. A manageable level of data usage will be at least 3GB – an average of 3 hours surfing per day, and the relative cost of the extra 2GB is narrow across all the networks compared to the 1GB monthly cost. Except for mobile broadband contracts with free laptops on offer which generally require a 24 months contract, it is advisable to go for 12 months contract if no laptop offer is included. This is because the sector is very competitive and might yet record lower prices in the near future.

Phone contracts last a long time, and in these days of slow global economic recovery, taking a little more time to research the market and understanding what really matters just before you buy can make a little difference

1. Connect an external monitor or an LCD projector to your phone to display its content on a big screen. Spectec Computer Co produces special adaptors for these purposes which are available at many online stores. By the way, some phones, for example some i-Mate models have an AV output, so they can be connected to an external monitor directly without an adaptor.

2. Connect external speakers to your phone to play music at home. That is even easier, appropriate adaptor cables are very cheap and are available at Amazon(dot)com and many other online stores. Most of them convert the phone’s specific output socket to the 3.5 mm standard, which is commonly used in many audio devices.

3. Use your Windows Mobile phone as WiFi hotspot. An application called Mobile Wi-Fi Router lets you use your phone’s Internet connection as a WiFi hotspot, so that you can connect your laptop of PC to the Internet.

4. Control your PC remotely from mobile phone. Program called LogMeIn works through any Web browser on PCs and mobile phones and allows controlling a PC remotely as if one is sitting in front of it.

5. Send and receive faxes on mobile phone. Some mobile phones are able to send and receive faxes. For those phones that do not have this feature there are fax applications. Cortado Fax is a fax application available for Windows Mobile, Symbian OS and Blackberry. There is also a similar application, called Simple Internet Fax, for Palm OS and Windows Mobile.

6. Print documents from your Windows Mobile phone. PocketWhere is a Windows Mobile application that prints any document on a mobile device. This program connects to available WiFi networks and can print documents on printers connected to those networks.

7. If you forgot your key inside the car. This trick is reported to work with many mobile phones although not with all. If you forgot your key inside the car and the door is locked but there is a spare key at home try the following. Call someone at home and ask them to press the door open button while holding the key close to the phone. You should be holding your mobile phone in about 20 cm from the door lock. The lock will open (hope you will not get into a situation where you will need this trick but you can try it just for fun).

8. Use your mobile device as a remote control. If your mobile device has an IR port, you can use it as a remote control for your TV, DVD player and other home appliances. There are many applications that enable this functionality in mobile phones, for example, NoviiRemote Deluxe for Windows Mobile and Infrared Remote Control for Symbian OS.

9. How to cook an egg using mobile phone. Put two mobile phones on both sides of an egg and a walkman or an iPod with speakers next to them. Start a phone call between the two phones and then play the music, which will imitate a conversation between them. In about one hour your egg will be cooked. This trick is published on many web sites and was verified by some newspaper journalists. Of course, I do not suggest that you use your phone in the kitchen, I just want to remind everyone that it is better to use earphones, especially if one talks a lot.

10. Make cheap international and long distance calls from mobile phone. One can make use of the ability of many modern phones to connect to the Internet. There are special applications that allow one to use his or her Skype account from mobile phones to make free calls to other Skype users and very cheap Skype Out calls to regular phones.

Just because something is new doesn’t mean that it is always better! The latest or newest mobile phone doesn’t guarantee quality and excellence over every other phone in the market.

So how would you shop for the best cell phones? By shopping online of course! The Internet is vast and it contains all the information that you need on every new mobile phone in the market. Based on reviews and summaries, you should be able to decide whether the latest mobile phone is truly the best for you.

Always remember – the newest mobile phone on the market may have the best reviews, but it may not be suitable for you. You might be looking for a cheaper mobile phone, or one with more features and functionality. Cell phone reviews can help you decide on the best cell phones but you shouldn’t follow it blindly.

Cell phone sites can also be fun to visit as you will discover new cell phones that you were not aware of. Should you consider them? Of course! That’s what shopping is all about – looking for the best.

Want to find the best cell phones? Well, head over to your nearest phone website. Read up on some cell phone reviews and decide whether the latest mobile phone in the market is really the best cell phone you could get for yourself. Ultimately, shopping online can result in getting the best cell phone in the market.

Before buying a cell phone, the first thing you’re most likely to do is conduct online searches on the cell phones you’re considering. But what makes a good mobile phone? How do you analyze cell phone reviews?

Most cell phone reviews will focus on a few of the cell phone’s features – its design, the mobile phone’s usability and of course its functionality. Good cell phone reviews should also include the cell phone’s durability and overall performance (i.e. the mobile phone’s battery, its user-friendliness, and the phone’s signal strength).

To make an informed decision on a mobile phone, it’s actually better for you to search and read up on a few cell phone reviews. This is because different reviews might focus on the phone’s different strengths. Some of the better mobile phone reviews will also point out the phone’s weaknesses. This will allow you to weigh the mobile phone’s pros and cons before you make that important purchase. If a cell phone review raves on a particular cell phone, then you should read up on other reviews. This is to verify the mobile phone’s true capabilities.

So, before you buy the first mobile phone that catches your eye, do a search and read up on some reviews. With a little effort, you might just find another mobile phone that’s suits your needs and budget better. When reading mobile phone reviews, always remember to look at the phone’s quality and ask yourself questions a couple of questions, such as:

1. How long the battery last? What is its talk-time?
2. Wow, it has so many features! But are they useful to me?
3. Does the phone’s design suit my taste and lifestyle?
4. I’m paying a lot of money. Am I paying for a feature-packed phone or am I just paying for its design/looks?
5. Does the phone contain the basic features that I require?
6. Are the phone model’s spare parts expensive?
7. How reliable is the mobile phone brand’s customer service?

Good cell phone reviews will answer these questions and more. It will also help you decide on a mobile phone that is the right for you.