Best Smartphone Operating Systems: Which to Pick?

Best Wireless Cell Phones Part 5

In Part 4, we discussed what frequency band combination to pick, if at all possible, in order to pick the best cellphone. We can divide cell phones into two categories - smartphones, and others. Smartphones carry an operating system (OS). Their operating system, a complex piece of software, gives them extended capabilities, but also require more performance from the hardware, and result in higher prices. What are the primary smartphones operating systems?

image by eraserhead1

• Symbian is the operating system for all Nokia cellphones, and represents approximately 47% of the smartphone market - a very high share. It is an open source platform, obviously heavily driven by Nokia. Symbian is an efficient operating system, with an emphasis on conserving resources, which enables smaller devices. Symbian phones can download applications from Nokia's Ovi Store, launched in mid 2009. The Ovi Store carries many high quality applications, most of which ported from the Apple App Store, but does nto have the runaway success of the Apple equivalent.
• BlackBerry OS is the operating system for Research in Motion, the #1 provider of business phones. A powerful and highly usable OS, it focuses on email, multi-tasking, and enterprise capabilities. It requires a separate subscription to RIM's email service. The BlackBerry OS powers 21% of all smartphones.
•  The iPhone OS, used by the Apple iPhone, needs no introduction. It powers the most runaway success in the history of wireless communications. It is focused on an excellent user interface, intuitive, easy to use. It permits the use of finger gestures against a touch screen to allow complex manipulations. It does not allow multitasking. The Apple App Store allows users to download third party applications for their iphone, and has also be incredibly successful, counting way over 100,000 applications. The Apple OS is proprietary and tightly controlled, and has a 15% share of the total smartphone market.
• Windows Mobile is Microsoft's operating system for mobile devices, a direct inheritor of Microsoft's embedded operating system, and, as such,  has gone through 20 years of development. it carries approximately 9% of the total smartphone market.
• Android is Google's entry into the wireless arena - although it is officially part of the Open Handset Alliance, which groups many cellphone manufacturers and wireless operators. It is derived from Linux, and is also open source. Android is now experiencing very fast growth in the number of handsets that it powers (today 5% of the all smartphones), and is also seeing significant growth in the number of applications available for download.
• webOS is the newest proprietary OS for Palm, and is also derived from Linux. It is only available today on the Palm Pre.  

How do they compare?

Because the life cycle of a cellphone is short, the choice of an operating system is not as critical as it can be in other areas, such as computers. Yet other factors make it an important dimension: inherent capabilities, device choices, performance requirements, and applications choices - smart phone does a lot more than phone calls...

When looking at market shares in the smartphone market, the two OSs gaining significantly today are iPhone OS and Android.  A the opposite end, Palm's webOS and Microsoft Windows Mobile appear totally stalled, despite Palm's recent introduction of the Palm Pre and MS's release of the powerful Windows Mobile 7. Both Symbian and BlackBerry keep leading shares of the market but see their relative positions erode.

The iPhone is still the phenomenon in the smartphone market, presenting a fully thought out paradigm for what a smartphone should be. Its only weaknesses are its tight control by Apple, which restrict choices and may, in the future, limit some of its innovation, and the high price of its devices. Android , fastest growing of all  right now, could become the open source iPhone, if it fulfills its promises - but it is not quite there today, either in UI maturity and robustness, or in breadth of applications. The largest potential danger ahead for Android is the issue of multiplying versions, which compels developers to test against more and more versions for every release, and which Google needs to address quickly before it becomes a barrier that developers will not want to confront.

Symbian carries excellent functionality in the fundamentals of communications (calls, SMS, email) as well as good robustness and maintainability - it needs, however, to expand quickly in other areas where iPhone and Android have been making inroads, and to ensure applications breadth in the Ovi Store, a tough challenge. BlackBerry is still unchallenged as the enterprise leader, but its lead depends upon the capabilities that it gives enterprise It departments more than the functionality that it provides to end users. It has not been successful so far at matching new user functionality developments from other providers. 

Microsot has just released the excellent Windows Mobile 7, but it might not be enough to stop its precipitous decline of the last few years, and its market share is still shrinking quickly. It is simply powering very few new devices. Finally, Palm's recent introduction of its new webOS on the Palm Pre may just be too little, too late.

Smartphone OS winners and losers for a purchase decision in 2010

• iPhone OS - winner. It is still rapidly gaining share, and offers an unprecedented access to third party applications. It is a strong technology with an excellent UI, and a big winner. The drawback of Apple's tight control is the very high cost of all of its devices, and the lack of choice out of Apple.
•  BlackBerry - winner if you are a business user - enterprise market only. RIM is still the acknowledged leader for enterprises, where full solutions are simply missing from other providers. But its offering remains weak for non-enterprise users. The present is still good, but the future looks darker, and many of its users seem ready to switch away.
• Android - winner with caution. It shows very strong growth and promise, but keeps large areas of immaturity in its UI, code and architecture. It is already the second largest Applications platform, gaining quickly. A conservative approach might be to look at purchasing an Android phone in one or two years.
• Symbian - winner with caution. Nokia's dominating market share and excellence in traditional functionality cannot be ignored. A the same time, we should be aware that it is losing market share quickly to newer competitors, and that its choice of applications is very limited compared to Android and the iPhone.
• Microsoft, Palm - losers. While, at this time, we would not rule out any cellphone purchase solely due to the OS in use, the lack of market success for Palm and Microsoft definitely downgrades their offerings, and purchasing a handset powered by either should be approached with caution.In particular, Palm could altogether go under some time in the next 6 quarters.

Come back soon to see our upcoming picks for best smartphone and best cellphone!

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Best GSM/ UMTS Frequency Bands to Pick in the US

Best Wireless Cell Phones Part 4

In Part 2 of this review, we picked GSM/ UMTS as our mobile  cellphone technology of choice. It comes, like all other wireless technologies, with large sets of frequency bands, which vary by country. In order for your cellphone to be operable in a given set of countries (and, of course, in the US) it needs to have the ability to communicate on the frequency bands used in these countries -and by the carriers that you choose to work with. So, what frequency bands should we pick, if we live in the US?

image by soundman1024

The AT&T flavor of GSM/UMTS technology (either through AT&T Wireless, or through virtual operators using AT&T Wireless' network) is closest to the world mainstream, and provides the widest choice of compatible phones. Additionally, if your phone carries the appropriate frequency bands, by buying an inexpensive pre-paid SIM card when you land in a foreign country, you can use your phone most anywhere in the world. Other technologies than GSM do not use SIM cards.

Unfortunately, T-Mobile's specific UMTS frequency bands are not commonly used in the rest of the world, so there are less phone choices in T-Mobile's frequency bands. While you can still use a multi-band T-Mobile phone abroad, you may not have access to fast UMTS service, which is really too bad if you spend much time on the web.

It is possible to identify, country by country, what frequency bands are available, for instance here. It is also possible to comb all GSM phones for available frequency combinations, and look for the most commonly used frequency combinations. This is long and painful work, somewhat simplified by the fact that cell phone manufacturers, who are not idiots, also know what the best frequency combinations are, and tend to target the best such combinations.

It turns out that, for best coverage, the ideal choice is a phone using GSM/UMTS technology, accessing GSM 850/900/1800/1900 bands and UMTS 850/1900/2100 bands. It maximizes universal coverage and cell phone availability. The drawback is that, in the US, you will be largely limited to AT&T Wireless. (you would still be able to use T-Mobile GSM frequencies for call and SMS service, but not its broadband service).  AT&T Wireless, with its excellent smartphone availability, has been able to maintain fairly high service plan prices, and, because of its high data network traffic, has acquired a less than stellar reputation for its network access (although very recent PC World tests seem to prove otherwise).

Now that we have gone over all the choices we need to make in terms of network technology, it is time to start looking at the cell phones themselves. Our next page will look at the primary types of smartphones, which constitute the high end of the cell phone market... So come back soon!

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Why You Might Not Pick GSM For Your Cell Phone

Best Wireless Cell Phones Part 3

Yesterday we discussed why GSM was the clear choice when looking at cell phone choice as a primary criterion. In particular, when looking at expensive smartphones, in it almost impossible to get the latest models -or sometimes enay model of a given line - on another technology that GSM. In Feb 2010, for instance, it is only possible to get the iPhone and the Google Nexus One on GSM.

image by kalleboo

If, however, phone choice or world mobility are not significant factors, it is worth looking at network coverage and wireless plan features/ costs as primary drivers. In this case, phone choice will be limited to the operator's list of phones for subsequent device selection. In the past few years, Verizon (which also powers Virgin Mobile) has seemed to have the best combined coverage and call reliability record, with the highest prices in the wireless market. Sprint has more affordable plans, along with good customer satisfaction. Nextel, also network provider for Boost Wireless, has the best rates among national providers, but probably the least future-proof technology.

So, if high quality service is most critical to you, while phone choice or world operations are not  important, CDMA is probably the best technology today in the US (in great part because of the high present load of the AT&T Wireless network). In this case, we will be largely limited to the range of phones offered for sale by your wireless carrier, with little opportunity to get an unlocked phone.

Similarly, if price is your only criterion, there is a good chance that iDEN will work well for you - if only for a limited time. In the same way, we will be limited to the range of phones offered for sale by your wireless carrier, which, for the case of iDEN, is a small sample set.

As we are specifically looking at the best cell phone, we will pick GSM/UMTS as our wireless technology of choice. Each cell phone comes with pre-programmed frequency bands - some are better than others for the US. Our next page we will discuss which frequency bands to choose for GSM/UMTS... So come back soon!

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Picking the Best Mobile Wireless Technology

Best Cell Phones Part 2

Yesterday we reviewed the backhaul technologies in use by wireless operators for cellphone use in the US. Which technology should we pick to be able to use the best cell phones?

image by Paul Keller

TDMA is now practically obsoleted in the US, and Nextel has also announced that it will eventually switch to CDMA, the technology of its holding company, Sprint. For this reason, very few new cell phones come out for TDMA or iDEN, and the choice of handsets is quite limited. As a result, TDMA and iDEN has not good choices when looking to buy the best cell phone.

CDMA has a strong footprint in the US, thanks to Verizon, Sprint and US Cellular. It boasts of the best coverage and highest customer satisfaction (albeit highest prices...) thanks to Verizon. Unfortunately, its presence around the world is much less significant, and its addressable population is low compared to GSM/UMTS. Consequently, cell phone manufacturers do not target CDMA in a first introduction, and often never come out with a CDMA version of their devices.

This leaves us with GSM. GSM/UMTS is present in the world around, and has the largest addressable customer market, based on network footprint. For cell phone manufacturers, it is the #1 target and guarantees the largest volume. As a consequence, it is the technology of choice when you want to have the widest selection of cell phones, and get a chance to pick the best cell phone. In fact, when we research actual models, we do find all of the best phones on GSM. We rarely find them on other technologies. Unequivocally, GSM/UMTS is the best technology to optimize phone choice, and, really, the only one to pick in large parts of the world, such as Europe.

Does it mean that we should all choose GSM as a carrier technology? Our next page will look at reasons why we might want to choose others.

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Best Mobile Cell Phone: Review

What is the best possible wireless cellphone for your needs? There are so many mobile options to pick from and decisions to make that it is not easy to understand what choices to make. This review series will discuss all aspects of the different options to look at in order to pick the perfect phone and service for you.We will go through all the differences in networks and operators, and discuss how they impact your cell phone choice - then we will review the cell phones themselves.

image by tonynetone

Mobile, wireless, cellular technologies: what you need to know

Wireless operators use three different primary technologies. Each requires a different kind of phone. Each operator uses a set of frequency bands within its technology. So, to be able to operate on a wireless operator's network, your phone must be compatible with its basic technology, and be able to use the right frequency bands.

Picking a phone implies picking a technology and a set of frequency bands, which will, in turn, limit your choice of operators. By picking the most common technology and the most commonly used frequency bands, you can improve your choices of phones and of operators.

The most common wireless technologies for cell phone use in the US are GSM, CDMA, TDMA and iDEN, a variant of TDMA. They go through technology generations, often referred to as 2G, 2.5G, 3G, 3.5G and 4G.

TDMA has been progressively absorbed into GSM standards and does not represent a separate technology thread any more. Cingular (now AT&T) migrated from TDMA to GSM. Nextel, now owned by Sprint, operates on iDEN, a related technology, and plans to migrate to Sprint's CDMA network in the future. TDMA and iDEN do not have a broad future in the US.

CDMA is primarily used by Verizon, Sprint, and regional operator US Cellular, in the US. It is used by a small number of networks around the world outside of te US, including in China. CDMA was 2G. CDMA turned into CDMA2000 1xRTT (2.5G), then CDMA2000 1x EV-DO (3G).

GSM is used by most of the world, and, in the US, by AT&T Wireless and T-Mobile. GSM was 2nd generation wireless, referred to as 2G. Its 2.5G evolution was GPRS, followed by EDGE (sometimes referred to 2.75G), now evolving into UMTS (sometimes referred to as WCDMA) for a 3G (3rd generation) technology. While GSM/GPRS/EDGE can carry voice and data, UMTS allows much faster connectivity and is preferred for fast data and broadband use.

Too complex to follow? The good news is that there is a trend to unify both GSM and CDMA evolution directions towards a common 4G technology call LTE Advanced. Verizon is already doing early deployment for a 3.5G precursor, LTE, and AT&T is planning to do the same. The bad news is that Sprint has already picked an alternative technology called WiMAX, typically associated with broadband rather than mobile use, and spent multiple billion dollars on it. This excellent article on TechSpot tells you all you need to know about 4G in the US.

So what technology should you pick? Our next page will tell you.

Updated: 4G links 

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