Choosing A Phone For The Outdoors

Posted on | December 13, 2009 | 10 Comments

In this post I’m going to look at points to consider when trying to choose a phone for using in the outdoors.

There is no “perfect” phone. It’s a myth. What there is, is the best fit to your needs. which will mean compromise. No phone will match your needs a hundred percent (unless they are very simple needs).

When you look for a phone to use in the outdoors, these may be some of the things you might consider in making that choice:

Does it have replaceable batteries?
Does it have a camera?
How good is the camera?
Does the phone have a flash?
Does it do video?
Does it run the apps you want?
Can you run apps?
Related to that does it work with the mapping software you use?
Can it play music?
Does it have a GPS?
How rugged is the case of the phone?
Does it have WIFI?
Does it have Bluetooth?
Do you want a QWERTY keyboard?
Can you use an external Bluetooth keyboard with it?
Can memory cards be used with it?
How much built in storage does it have?
Does it have a digital compass?
How big is the screen?

So you can see there are lot of things to consider when buying a new phone. And that’s not even a complete list of things to consider, you may have thought of one or two more to add to it. As I’m writing this I’m thinking of more to add to the list still.

With so many things to think of, how do you choose the right phone?

The first thing you have to do is decide how you are going to use the phone. If all you want to do is make a phone call, send a txt message then the decision is easy because you can go for a basic phone with none of the bells and whistles.

Anything more complicated than that and you have to start prioritising the features and how important they are to you?

If it’s the photography side that you are more interested in. Then you should be concentrating on the camera and the features around that. So you are looking at the resolution, image quality, lens, optical zoom, flash, auto focus, screen (for viewing subject before taking photo) and storage. You may even want to consider a GPS and whether the phone would geotag the photos as they are taken. Plus you need to consider how to get those photos from the phone on to your PC/Mac. Another consideration would be does the phone allow you to run apps to edit photos or take panoramas.

If you are going to use the phone to blog your walks, then you need to consider your preferences for entering text into the phone. I would suggest you really need a QWERTY keyboard of some kind. Then how are you going to record your notes? Will you be emailing them to your blog? Will you be using an app to write them? For more on the sort of stuff you can do while blogging on the trail read the previous post here.

May be you want to use your phone for entertainment then you need to make sure it plays MP3’s, how much storage does it have? Can you use memory cards? Does it have an FM Radio? How easy is it to get MP3’s on to the phone? So your main priorities would be with the answer to those questions.

What about using the phone as a GPS? Do you just want your position or do you want to see your position on a map? Will your phone work with your mapping software? Can you put OS map data on the phone? Can you record your route? If you are displaying OS map data then you want a large screen preferably.

Of course there will be some overlap between some of these usages of the features. Which only really benefits us and makes the phone potentially more useful.

So, think about how you will use the phone, prioritise the features with this in mind, and good luck

Category: Blog

Comments

10 Responses to “Choosing A Phone For The Outdoors”

Ashley Landis
December 13th, 2009 @ 5:53 pm

You should also consider how sturdy it is. I drop mine all the time and it about on it’s last leg :p
Darren
December 13th, 2009 @ 6:03 pm

Ashley thanks for the comment. I think I did list that in the intial list as how rugged is the case.
Chris
December 13th, 2009 @ 6:03 pm

I usually take an old Sony Ericsson that’s quite robust and has a good camera. I’ve got a PAYG sim for it, which I bought just to use on the hill. I’ve done this ever since I lost my sack for 10 minutes on the top of Stob Coire nan Lochan in a gale in the dark.

I found it before it blew over the edge, but my Blackberry would have been gone for good if I hadn’t. So now I take a phone that I don’t mind if I lose or it breaks and doesn’t have tons of contacts, appointments, email etc in it.

The other thing I do after that experience is keep my car key in an inside pocket rather than the lid of my sack. Losing a car key would have been an unwelcome twist to an already loooong day
Darren
December 13th, 2009 @ 6:10 pm

Chris, good points there.
But I do feel that phones like the Blackberry/iPhone etc should be backed up regularly anyway.
john hee
December 13th, 2009 @ 6:48 pm

More on the topic please:
I’m just switching over from a PAYG Nokia 610 (long battery life; good for comms; robust) to a cheap contract Nokia E63 (jury is still out – too early to assess but very function full)

The latter meets more of your spec above, especially for Blogging – but is it a better phone? After all the main delivery is comms functionality

SO just how much beyond that is sacrificed for loss of battery life etc
Rob
December 13th, 2009 @ 7:43 pm

Yeah, more important to me than several of your points – a phone that is affordable enough to replace *WHEN* it gets trashed on the hills. An iPhone is all well and good but it is, what, a £400 hit when you drop/drown it. I’m eyeing up the £100 INQ Chat as my 2010 ‘out on the hill’ phone that still has most of the iPhone features as it’ll do Facebook/Blogger/email stuff – at least where there is a signal! But then I’m shopping for a handset that I can live with for a 45 day away-from-home trip.
R MacE
December 13th, 2009 @ 8:30 pm

My main criteria would be the ability to hold a signal in marginal areas, good battery life, well under 100g and cheap. I’d only be using it to make calls/send text messages. If it was easy to use wearing gloves I’d consider that a bonus.
dave hollin
December 13th, 2009 @ 9:46 pm

I have a Nokia N95 (currently poorly!) and find this is a really versatile phone for the hills. The camera is superb, the GPS is great (combined with viewranger), the internet function quite decent and the music/multimedia function awesome

but then I am biased!
Frank - Our Hiking Blog
December 13th, 2009 @ 11:51 pm

Thanks for this great post Darren. As John says, MORE please. I want the answer! What is the best phone?

I suspect none of them will meet everyones requirements. In Australia mobile service is (at best) patchy once you head off a road (let alone, bushwalking) somewhere.
In addition , data costs are extremely high over here and you would not think of using a phone as a GPS for more than a few minutes.
Enjoying the updated blog.
Frank
Darren
December 14th, 2009 @ 10:10 am

Amazing comments. Thank you for leaving them.

As I said that list was a list of things people possibly would consider. And as has been rightly pointed out others to think of is cost and weight. It wasn’t meant to be comprehensive, I did keep adding as I wrote the post.

Thanks for giving feedback or suggestions for phones to look at. Shame none of the phone companies will provide ones to play with.

Frank, we in the UK are better provided with on the data tarriffs. For between £2.50 and £10 depending on carrier and contract you can add an all you can eat or as they like to call it an unlimited (but it’s not there is a fair use policy get out clause) data plan. Or with the iPhone it is included as standard with O2 . IIRC with O2 on a PAYG iPhone you get a free years data usage. As for coverage even though the companies claim a high percentage of the UK covered, as anyone will tell you go out in to the hills here and that coverage is a joke.