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Considerations When Purchasing a Smartphone

Technique #20: Understand the Questions You Should Ask, and Answer These Questions before You Purchase Your Next Mobile Device

Smartphones or PDAs (personal digital assistants) were designed to enhance, not control, our professional and personal lives. Yet nowadays, these devices not only run our lives, some have also been known to cause accidents, some of which end lives.

I remember the day when I got my first cell phone. It was about two years after I graduated from college, and there was no such thing as a PDA at the time. (If there was, I would’ve had one, of course; after all, I did graduate with a degree in management information systems.) Today, l rarely leave my office or home without this all-important device. While I try extremely hard to not let it control my life, there are days when I’m not too upset if I accidentally forget to turn it back on or if I don’t have it with me. Though my Smartphone certainly makes me more productive when I’m not in the office, I don’t feel the need to constantly check e-mail, talk on the phone, or text. I personally do not want to be that connected all of the time, and I’m fairly sure that my clients wouldn’t be too pleased if I was using it while I was supposed to be working with them. I simply don’t need to be online 100 percent of the time in my line of work. However, your situation—and need for electronic communication—will most likely differ from mine and everyone else’s. Only you can ...

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