What is a Smart Phone?

The phrase smart phone will be something you hear regularly when looking to purchase or upgrade to a new mobile phone. So, what's the difference between a smart phone and a normal mobile?

Essentially, smart phones are a mixture of both a mobile phone and a personal assistant or computer. Unlike traditional phones which allowed you to text and call, smart phones allow you to send and receive email as well as edit Microsoft Office documents or play computer games, more often than not, they also have a touch screen.

There are a number of features smart phones generally have:

Operating Systems

Like the way your computer uses Windows or Mac operating systems, smartphones use their own operating systems or OS. On Apple the OS is called IOS on BlackBerry it is known as BlackBerry OS. The most popular OS is Google's Android OS, Microsoft also has a Windows OS, but currently it is not very popular.

Apps

Most of these smartphone also come with apps or applications. In older phones the contacts are applications. However, due to the processing power of smart phones they have far more powerful apps and allow you to do all sorts of things, you would once only have been able to do on a computer, let alone a PDA. You simply download apps to your smartphone and then use them for whatever you require - from navigation to editing photos, there are apps for almost everything and most are free.

Internet

Smart phones also allow you to access the full Internet via their 3G and 4G access. These networks allow for fast access and mean you can browse the net in all its glory in your hand.

QWERTY Keyboard

We're all familiar with sending text messages through the use of the digit buttons on our phones. With smartphones it is possible to send emails and messages via a full QWERTY keyboard. This can be anything from a physical keyboard to one that is software based and appears on a touch screen.

Email

SMS messaging has been around for a long time and smart phones have it of course. However, they also come with the ability to send and check your email accounts and can sync all your personal and business emails to one place. This means you can access all your email.

They also allow you the opportunity to download applications that connect you to your preferred social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter among others. This gives you the opportunity to stay in touch in the usual manner you would when using a computer or laptop. This is a significant advance on the traditional phone and really sets the smart phone apart from traditional mobile phones.

Smart phones provide users with a range of opportunities, technology and power in the palm of their hands and are the perfect addition to your new mobile phone deal.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

The Article is written by Cormac Reynolds at www. MobilePhoneDeals.ie which lists and compares mobile phone deals and mobile broadband deals in Ireland. Compare O2 Mobile Phones, Vodafone Mobile Deals, Meteor.ie Mobile Phones and Three.ie Deals. Visit http://www.MobilePhoneDeals.ie for more information. Copyright information. This article is free for reproduction but must be reproduced in its entirety, including live links & this copyright statement must be included.