Good Morning Green Panda Readers. Today is the first post in our new readers series called “How Smart is Your New Smartphone.”  This series will discuss all of the benefits of having a Smartphone as well as all of the helpful functions of new Smartphones.  It is safe to say that technology has come a long way from the rotary dial up phone to the magical Smartphones of today.  It is very appropriate that we are writing about Smartphones today because today is the official release date of Apples (much anticipated) iPhone 5.

What is a Smartphone?

A Smartphone is a mini computer that acts as a cell phone, an mp3 player, and a camera (both video and pictures).  A Smartphone also allows us to access the Internet and our favourite Social Media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter through their unique Applications, otherwise known as Apps.  Remember the saying “There’s an App for That?”  This means that we can download an application to help us with any service that we need.  If you want to know the bus schedule you can download your local Transport Application.  If you want to check your bank account balance you can download your Financial Institutions Application and gain instant access to your bank account information and the closest bank branch or ATM.

The most common types of Smartphones are the iPhone, Blackberrys, and Android Phones.  Basically this just refers to the type of technology that the Smartphones use as well as the company that makes them such as Apple, Research in Motion (for Blackberry) or Samsung, HTC, and LG (for Android Phones).

Last year I upgraded my basic cell phone to a Smartphone and I totally love it.  I originally went in to my cell phone provider to buy a Blackberry, but I walked out with the LG Shine Plus with Google Android Phone.  I totally love it. I downloaded Applications for my basic social media needs such as Gmail, Facebook, and Twitter.  I also downloaded a Free Application from the Android Market which allows me to scan the barcode on products and get the price of each item, if they don’t have a price tag.  The Android Market is the equivilent of the App Store for your iPhone, iPad, and iPod.

New Smartphones

I also love my new Smartphone because I can download games to play while I am waiting for something such as the next bus or if I am waiting at my doctors office.  I downloaded Blackjack, Checkers, Euchre, and Badgammon.  The great thing about downloading Game Applications is that we only have to connect to the Internet to download, we don’t have to connect to the Internet to play the games.  I personally don’t have a Data Plan on my new Smartphone, so I can only connect to the internet where wi-fi access is available.

The cost of buying a new Smartphone is definitely worth the price because of the convenience, accessibility, and simplicity.  However, the cost of a Data Plan for a New Smartphone may not be within your budget, it was not within mine until I found out that I can Bundle the price of my monthly Smartphone Data Plan with my Home Phone, Internet, and Cable.  Now all of my services come on one monthly bill and the more services I bundle together the bigger discount I receive.  It is a win win situation; the Cell Phone provider gets more business and I get a monthly discount.

Having access to connect to the Internet through our new Smartphone and without having to access a computer is super convenient.  I can Google anything that I need with the tap of a button, I can Tweet my thoughts with a simple tap on my Smartphone screen.  The one thing that I don’t really like about my new Smartphone is the touch screen, it is really hard to see in the sunlight.  If you are looking for helpful online financial resources such as your favourite blog or an online financial calculator it is helpful to know that you can find them anywhere anytime with your new Smartphone.

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