[General Topics] OfficerJimLahey:
I often say to myself, that there must be more makes and models of mobile devices out there than the variety of vehicles these days. If that turns out true, it's no wonder. This industry is the fastest growing market right now. With such a selection, features, brands, and prices, it's hard to choose which device will be the best for you. Hopefully this guide will give you an idea on what to look for in your next device.

FIRST OFF:

GSMArena is your friend. They provide detailed specifications of many devices out there. The ones they don't show, well, a good rule of thumb is that the device is probably not popular enough to warrant your attention, if you want to do some of the things this site is known for (more on that later).

A cool feature of GSMArena is the ability to be able to compare two (or more) devices side-by-side, so once you have a small handful of possibilities, you can compare features easily.

One thing you do need to be careful of, is that GSMArena does not feature every variation a carrier may instill. So the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini you may see at the Bell Aliant store really has 16GB of storage space, but Bell may be the only carrier that uses that variant.

NETWORK:

Those looking for a Wi-Fi only tablet can skip this section...but a must-read for everyone else.

If you have a handful of devices in mind, right off the bat you should rule them in by checking their network status. I cannot tell you which one will work for your network, but your provider will tell you what technology (or technologies) they use (CDMA vs GSM/HSPA/HSPA+/LTE), and at what frequencies. My provider runs HSPA+ and LTE at 1700 and 2100 mHz only (no 2G), so that narrows my options for phones. As an example, last years Moto G LTE would work, but not this year's version due to mismatched frequencies.

Network technology is quite important, especially if you use CDMA. This means you would have no SIM (a tiny device that contains your subscriber information that you get from your provider) card (unless it has world phone capability, and even then, the bands probably won't work for your region) and are stuck with the carrier you buy the phone from. There are some CDMA-based network phone's, like the Motorola Photon Q (released for Sprint), that have their SIM card non-removable (a CDMA/GSM hybrid) where people have modified by soldering in a proper SIM slot. However, the GSM bands used for this device no not work for North America providers.

REFUSALS:

Think of a list of what you don't want. Want to avoid a phablet? Check! No to an Android OS older than Kitkat? Got it! No Samsung devices? You are on fire!

Maybe you can even think of some of the basic internals we take for granted. Usable space is one of them. It's hard to tell, but there is a big disconnect between the ROM size and what you have available to use. Heck, the system data's gotta take up space too! But the big question, what does this leave me? My recent phone, an LG Optimus F3Q, came with a JellyBean ROM, on a 4GB device. I had 1.3GB to play with. Not a lot, in light of the F3Q's predecessor for T-Mobile, the Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G had a 8GB ROM (Ice Cream Sandwich) and 5GB to play with. Why the downgrade, I never understood.

Seems as though a couple years ago, 16GB or more was reserved for high-end phones, 8GB for mid-range, and 4GB for budget phones. I am still seeing phones set up this way, such as the LG G3 S (aka Beat). This is a phone that was released with a 8GB ROM (the smaller cousin to the LG G3, much like the relationship between the Samsung Galaxy S4 and S4 Mini) and KitKat as an OS, upgradeable to Lollipop. This phone is in preparation of space-hungry Lollipop, and it shows when you look at this device's usable stoage space. For a 8GB ROM, you get around 2.4GB available to you. Since Lollipop's new runtime doubles the space of applications (un-compiled version, and compiled version of everything) compared to previous Android versions, the situation is just as bad with this phone as I have previously complained about with the F3Q. Thus, my refusal is no less than 8GB for Jellybean-age devices, or no less than 16GB for Lollipop or newer.

FEATURES:

Okay, so now you know what you don't want. What about what you want? Time to start a second list. Be reasonable, as in don't add features that won't be in phones for the next several years (like 1TB storage). This could be a quad-core processor (which seems to be the bare minimum for decent devices these days, or maybe 2GB of memory/RAM).

GIMMICKS:

In your feature list, did you add dual-SIM support, QWERTY keyboard, or some other gimmick? Be careful with that - a lot of manufacturers don't handle gimmicks too well, and only put them on lower-specced devices (Samsung Duos line comes to mind). These devices are not meant to push a lot of units, so the prices of them usually are quite higher. Keep in mind that dual-sim is not quite a gimmick, but it strays from the norm enough that you would be confused if it wasn't.

TO MicroSD OR NOT MicroSD?:

This is increasingly becoming a gimmick sadly. I like spending less on a device and then supplementing it with cheap memory. But this cannot be the case for many. Some manufacturers are bringing them back, others, are abolishing them from their devices. It's hard to see what the weather will be like there.

It comes down to personal choice, if it's a worthy feature or something you can live without.

BATTERY:

Battery life holds a big importance. Typically you want to look at the number of mAh the battery holds (as a comparison to like devices), but for say, different screen sizes, a smaller battery will work just as well on a smaller screen. So you need to look at screen-on-time metrics to know how long you can use your device, and how long you can go before a recharge. The challenge is that manufacturers usually advertise battery life by idle time, which is a perfect-world scenario (all sensors and radios turned off, no screen-on-time - basically the device is hibernating more aggressively than you will ever let it).

Another consideration is whether the battery should be removable. I used to be a strong supporter of removable batteries, since I would replace a faulty battery from time to time, but these days, I'm ambivalent to that idea. With external battery packs, you should never have to pop the back cover because the battery went dead. With the fact you can turn off a bootlooped phone after pressing power for many seconds, you never need to pull the battery either. Although, the big reason for a removable battery is for longevity of the phone, as the battery is usually the first to fail (after-market batteries are tested to function well for 300 charges). With a user-replaceable battery, you can easily buy and insert a replacement, be it from the OEM or third party (which often provides a little more juice). Once again, it comes down to personal choice.

DEVELOPMENT:

Okay, by now, you must have some decent candidates. But how do they stack up to this site? If the device does not have a forum yet, there is no guarantee it will ever get one. Even if it has a fourm, there is no guarantee it will get any amount of development. This becomes a judgement call whether your phone will be rootable, and have the ability to install custom ROMs (if that's your thing). If you are not concerned about that kind of support, no loss has been made, but if custom ROMs are your thing, don't buy and then "hope and wait" for something that may never come because you got a device noone cares about.

FINALLY:

Sometimes you cannot have everything you are looking for and not looking for. So this becomes time to prioritize and find the best match of features and refusals. It is not necessarily settling, but if we could all have our "Homer", the cost of phones would be astronomical (and some people place certain price points as refusals).

If you still get stuck, there is the device suggestion thread where others suggest the best device out there for your needs.

Hope this helps someone on their next purchase.