Many years ago, Blackberry smartphones were known as the phones for business, as originally intended, and that’s how they gained a great market share in the mobile industry. But, it later became the smartphone that everyone had and were obsessed with to the point people started calling it ‘crackberry’. Oh dear.Eventually, the obsession started to wither away as Apple, Samsung, HTC and Nokia stepped in and upped the game and are still doing so. This means more smartphones and subsequently more choices to allow business users to select the one that would best meet their needs.
There are a lot of factors that may need to be considered such as the cost, the size of the screen, the operating system the smartphone is running on and the physical size of it, making the choice even harder because they come in all shapes and sizes now. Still, there are plenty to choose from. So without further ado, in no particular order, here are what I think are the top best smartphones for business use and business users.
SAMSUNG GALAXY S5
There is more to the Samsung Galaxy S5 than just a pretty face. It’s a perfect candidate for enterprise due to its KNOX technology, which is the secure mobile platform designed to provide enhanced data and privacy protection: the most secure Android platform. It takes security one-step further too with its fingerprint sensor, used to provide device security. Many smartphone manufacturers are starting to implement this feature and so they should. Security is a massive requirement, especially in the world of business. Users may use their phone to send emails, which could contain confidential information and thus security for business is crucial.
The practicality of the smartphone is also pretty important. If you’re using your phone as a business user then chances are you’re going to be using productivity apps such as Office or sending lots of emails everyday. As a result, the smartphone needs to be comfortable to use and the S5 gives you just that. With its 5.1-inch screen, 8.1mm soft plastic body and at 145g the phone is pretty light and easy to hold. Oh, and its water-resistance so you shouldn’t need to be too careful with your coffee either
APPLE iPHONE 6
Apple’s iPhone 6 is made up of a union of, both, metal and glass and with it being only 6.9mm thick and only 129 grams, it looks and feels premium. It’s bigger than its predecessors but the iPhone 6 is, in my opinion, the perfect size and can be used very comfortably even with one hand. So not only does it look very slick but it’s also very practical to use. What’s more is, it has a 4.7-inch screen, making reading and writing emails as well as using productivity apps smooth whether you have it in portrait or landscape mode. Another major factor business users would require is a good battery life, one that wouldn’t cause a client to believe you hung up on them whilst on call. Now that would be bad. Thankfully, Apple enhanced the battery in the iPhone 6 and it sure lasts longer than the iPhone 5 and 4 does, so bring on those extremely long conference calls.
Let’s not forget what Apple are king at: Mobile Apps. The App Store offers thousands of applications and plenty of free productivity apps too. This is certainly something many business users will require and something Apple will offer in a Applebeat. Sorry, I meant in a heartbeat
Similarly to the Galaxy S5, the iPhone also has fingerprint technology, adding a layer of security but Apple didn’t stop there. They offer a range of enterprise resources making it the right choice for business use. It offers support for SSL, a range of VPN solutions, WPA2 Enterprise (a Wif-Fi standard) and data protection APIs. You can find out more details here.
HTC ONE M8
It seems as though the plastic body just doesn’t cut it as the HTC One M8 sits beside the range of iPhones, in terms of its premium style with its full metal body and its beautiful full HD 5-inch screen. It’s amazing on the outside, right? But it’s also awesome on the inside, running a quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM, leaving no business user short of power. It also means it could handle multi-tasking smoothly so you can be running multiple apps without any lag. Perfecto.
Just like the S5 and the iPhone 6, the HTC also provides security. If it didn’t, it would never have made this list. The smartphone is HTCpro certified and this means it has management tools built specifically for enterprise users as well as providing 256-bit encryption, data protection and the capability to use a VPN (virtual private network) client. Sounds like a good choice for business use, don’t you think?
NOKIA LUMIA ICON
Alike the HTC ONE M8, the Nokia Lumia Icon sports a metal body, a fast processor (great for multitasking), 2GB of RAM and a sharp 5-inch screen with a resolution of 1920 X 1080 pixels. It also has a convenient long battery life (standby of up to 18 days, 3G talktime of up to 16 hours) and a 20 Mega-pixel camera so that business users can take photos or make videos when playing that hilarious prank on their boss. Not very professional, but a bit of fun can never go amiss or maybe the camera could be used for business socials instead?
Going back to being professional, the phone comes with 32GB internal memory so it is great for downloading large files or creating many documents on the phone itself. As for the Software, the Lumia runs Microsoft’s very own Windows 8 operating system, with features that would be beneficial to any business user including integration with Microsoft Office with access to documents from anywhere, a selection of productivity apps and security (hardware accelerated device encryption, remote security policy enforcement, remote lock via Internet, remote device wipe via Internet and so on).
CONCLUSION
It is pretty clear that all of the above phones would be suitable in a business environment. They are all pretty fast, are a good physical size, have email capabilities, the standard calendar scheduler for scheduling meetings, a range of productivity apps across the different platforms and some awesome security features. However, there is no best smartphone because at the end of the day every user and every business will have their own needs. What may cater ones requirement may not cater another’s. It comes down to personal preference too and of course cost, which is a major factor that would most likely influence a business’s decision. That’s probably why Nokia is highly used in the business environment as it’s one of the cheapest.
If you ran your own business, which phone would you provide your employees? I look forward to reading your comments.