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If you own a smartphone, you’ll likely know exactly what you want from its features. But if you’re looking for a work smartphone, the features you need could differ. Read our top six things to consider when you’re on the hunt for a business smartphone.
1. Battery
First thing’s first: the battery on a work smartphone needs to be resilient to last you through a day of meetings, emails, calls and travel. Therefore, finding one that lasts is as important as making sure you pick the best network (more on that later).
There are lots of helpful articles out there on the smartphones with the best battery life, including this lineup from Laptop Mag. For any device, though, doing your research and reading reviews from people who have used it is always helpful. This way you can check whether the battery is as great as the manufacturer says it is.
For your work phone’s battery health, there are easy ways to check up on how it is performing. iPhones have the Battery Health feature in Settings and many other devices have this function, too. For optimising your battery, check out these 10 tips to keep it going as long as possible.
2. Storage
Next up is storage. If you’re using your phone for work, you’ll probably need to download apps for task support. Although most business apps don’t require a huge amount of storage – think Outlook, Hangouts and Gmail – it’s best to have good capacity there for photos, videos or other media.
Our suggestion is to go for 64GB which is widely available in most of today’s smartphones. It’s better to be prepared than to be caught short by a full memory, after all.
3. Screen Size and Display
We get it – carrying around a big phone can be annoying. But wouldn’t it make life easier if you had a larger screen to read your emails, check documents and take video calls on the go?
While the iPhone 12 now comes in a mini version which is arguably a more pocket-friendly size, we’d recommend something larger like the iPhone 12 Pro. This device comes in at a healthy 6 inches compared to the mini’s 5.4 inches. And if you’re feeling bold, the iPhone 12 Max is 6.7 inches.
It’s not just the screen size you should be thinking of, though. Display is just as important as there’s nothing worse than fuzziness or dodgy pixels, especially if you need to look at documents, images or graphics. Choosing a work smartphone with an OLED or AMOLED screen instead of LCD is a good place to start along with a good amount of PPI (pixels per inch).
4. Ports
As smartphones evolve, we’re seeing that fewer have a port for earphones and many no longer have microSD or SIM card slots. If you need any of these for your job, or don’t want to use wireless earphones, we recommend looking for a business smartphone that will suit your need for the right ports.
5. Coverage
Making sure you choose a great network provider for optimal coverage wherever you go is key. But this is down to your own research. You could take out a phone and SIM contract with a reputable network provider, but we think there’s a smarter (and more cost-savvy) way to do this.
Going SIM-free with your business smartphone could help you tick both the cost and coverage boxes as you will have the freedom to hunt for a great SIM-only deal. And in the UK, there are plenty of network providers that offer SIM-only.
Take a look at the best and worst UK networks according to Which?. This includes some of the major networks like EE, O2 and Vodafone, but also MNVOs (mobile virtual network operators). These offer noticeably lower prices as they rent their space from the big networks rather than charging you more to maintain a network infrastructure.
6. Price
The cost of any business smartphone is no doubt going to influence which one you go for. Interestingly, getting your hands on a brilliant smartphone without a large price tag could be simpler than you think.
Companies such as London-based tech startup Raylo offer the latest smartphones – including the iPhone 12 and Samsung Galaxy S21 – for as little as £22.99 per month. With this alternative option each smartphone is leased, so you never actually own it. You can simply send it back at the end of your contract and upgrade to the latest phone.
Of course, which option you choose is entirely dependent on your situation – but knowing you don’t have to pay more to own the smartphone means you have a greater choice available.
