A cell phone has become an integral part of our modern life. It has penetrated so deep in our life that we cannot imagine leaving our home without one. It is not just the utilitarian value of cell phones that has made us so addicted to it, it’s the lifestyle value of a cell phone that has hooked us to cell phones. And like any addiction, cell phone addiction also has its downside.

This forces us to buy the cell phone which we may not need, which we come to realize only when we are done buying the latest but not-useful-for-us handset from the market. This has forced me to prepare a quick step-by-step guide to help you compare phones based on our needs before you take your plastic (credit card) out to make the payment.

Step 1: What kind of person are you?

Are you the one who stays indoors glued to his television set or playstation3? Or are you the person who goes out, hangs out with friends in the pubs, theaters, etc.? Or are you the type that flashes new sleek Mercedes Benz and sport only classy business suites?

You need to find out what kind of a person you are before deciding on a phone that will go with your personality. For example: Nokia n-gage can be good for a game addict, but communicator is the demand of executive kinds, whereas, Motorola phones and iPhones could be considered cool among people who hang out in the coolest place in the town.

Step 2: How will you use the phone?

How you use your cell phone will also define which cell phone you should go with. If you use cell phone to listen to music then a phone with a good music headphone and higher capacity is good for you, but you will need a full QWERTY keypad, if you type long e-mails and messages on your cell phone. If clicking picture is your passion then think of buying a camera with in-built flash, higher mega pixel lenses, and large storage. If you indulge in long telephonic conversation then a cell phone that has long battery life is good for you.

Step 3: Prioritize

While finding your usage pattern, you will see that you need more than one feature in your phone. You will also see that you want two mutually exclusive features in your phone. In situations like this, you need to prioritize your requirements. You need to decide, if e-mail capability is more important to you or a good camera quality is more important for you.

Step 4: Conduct a research

As you can see above, not everyone needs same feature, so not everyone will settle for one mobile phone. That is the reason why there are so many mobile phone brands available in the market. These choices not necessarily help us find a good deal. Choices rather confuse us and make us purchase a wrong product, which ultimately leave us dissatisfied. Hence, we need to conduct a research so that we do not only get the type of cell phone we need, but to also get the best mobile phone deals.

While searching for the mobile phones, you should carefully weigh all the options available for you. This will save you from the post-purchase dissonance that we face after making a wrong purchase.

Step 5: Shortlist some phones

At the end of your research, you should be able to narrow down your choices to 3-4 cell phones. You should conduct a research until your options do not become limited to 5 cell phones.

Step 6: Ask for recommendations

You should never undermine the power of recommendation when buying a cell phone. A recommendation from a friend, family, colleague, or relative who have similar requirements, or who have used the cell phones or type of cell phones you have shortlisted in step 5. Ask for their experience with the cell phone, and also ask for other alternatives you should consider. Do not take the views of people who go by advertising alone seriously, as they are not qualified to recommend any cell phone.

Step 7: Ask question in forums

You can also ask questions related to the shortlisted cell phones in reputed cell phone forums. If you do this, you will get views from the users who have firsthand experience of using the cell phone. At this point, I must tell you that many companies also participate in such forums, sometimes overtly and most of the time disguised as an innocent user. If the company is participating overtly then it is a good thing, but if a company or its employees are pretending to be average users to participate in the discussion then stay away from such discussions.

The only way to avoid getting false information is to ask cell phone related questions in many forums. Synthesize all the answers and see which cell phone from the shortlisted list comes out as a winner.

Step 7: Search on the Internet

You can also use search engines and other mobile phones review sites to get to know about the cell phones that you have shortlisted. Trust only authority sites when reading reviews because there are many one or two page mobile phone price comparison sites created with the sole purpose to deceive readers. One such trusted authority site is http://www.mobilephone-expert.co.uk/phones/. This website has no allegiance with any mobile company; therefore the reviews and price comparison posted here are unbiased.

Conclusion

Do not fall for what-is-the-latest-in-the-market trap. Once you are done with finding a mobile phone that meet your needs, go and purchase it, and stop looking for mobile phone ads. It will do nothing, but create dissonance.

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