Smartphones are a Smart Thing

Sales people will find that smartphones are the handiest tools that they can find. They spend most of their time in the field and this gadget helps them to keep in touch with their customers and business partners. Smartphones also house loads of information, data and useful tools.

Even smartphones apps have become the order of the day; they can help you to process credit card information, document expenses and mean the world to small businesses everywhere. Smartphones have enhanced customer interaction and play an active role in boosting bottom lines. Here are some other ways by which smartphones are handy in the workplace.

Navigation:

The GPS on smartphones are useful when you need to get to meetings or appointments on time, especially if you are in a new city or place. Certain GPS systems or apps will even give you vital information like traffic delays, alternate routes and landmarks that will make your search easier.

Access Customer Information:

Smartphones can even connect to CRM’s so that you can access to data on your customers, products or services that can be useful. You can use smartphones to go through the order history of a customer or the background that you have with prospects. With a smartphone, you will always have useful information that you can then use.

Final Research:

It always pays to be early to your next appointment. It also pays to be well prepared for it as well, so when you are waiting to meet your next client you can use your smartphone for research. You can also use this time to research products and other data on Google or find new things that you can use.

Maintaining Schedule:  

If you have many appointments in a single day, it can be tough to maintain all of them. Certain smartphone apps let you manage various details for each meeting such as the client, location and notes that you need to brush up on for the meeting. Keeping yourself prepared ahead of the meeting will help you to avoid any serious mistakes like calling your prospect by the wrong name or talking about his competitors!

Updating Social Media Accounts:

Smartphones are the best tool for social media marketing; you can easily access the accounts that you have any comment, post and update them as well. So if you have to wait for your next client or are stuck in the waiting room, you can utilize this precious time.

Concrete Responses:

When you are at a loss of words at your meeting, you needn’t fret over it. All you have to do is to access your smartphone for immediate access to relevant information. This will also show your client that you are quick to take action and look for solutions. You can also access your website or CRM more get information that will not only be relevant but accurate as well.

Immediate Access to Contacts:

With a smartphones, you are armed with all your contacts wherever you are. You can easily contact your colleague to get information about a prospect or product; you can also connect to Facebook, LinkedIn to find new contacts and prospects.

Brushing up Presentation:

You can finalize crucial points that have to be discussed or edit new presentations too. There are many apps that let you do this and you can do this even while waiting in the lobby.

Smartphones have taken on our entire workload for us. I am using the XonPhone 5 Smartphone as it is the perfect research devices, calendar, multimedia suite, email center and alarm clock. Log on to www.oplustech.com to know more about it.

Boosting Your Smartphone Speed

Smartphones help us to do a number of things, but that also means that they are overburdened with many apps and processes as well. This can also affect the speed of the smartphone; there are apps that can help you to optimize your smartphone. To prevent your Android OS from getting unstable, slowing down or consuming too much battery.

Normally your smartphone will slow down if there are too many apps, background processes running at the same time. Your phone can also slow down if there is not enough internal storage; it makes sense to download a good app that can help boost smartphone speed and performance. Here are some ways you can do this.

1. Clean up your Apps:

Boosting your apps will speed up your smartphone to a certain extent. You can also check all your apps every now and then to install those that you are not using. Useless apps take up valuable internal space and you can boost the speed by uninstalling them.

2. Widget Control:

Widgets are super useful but having too many of them can slow down your smartphone. Those widgets that are constantly being updated will also affect smartphone speed. Take a look at all the widgets installed on your phone and uninstall those that you are not using. You can also change the updates settings so that they don’t take place automatically.

3. Task Killer Apps:

Install a good task killer app. This will help you to end all ongoing tasks with a single tap; this will also improve the performance. A really good app is the Advanced Task Killer; this is a free app that has loads of options like the ‘Ignore List’ and the ‘Auto Kill’. You can even add the widget on your screen for immediate access. This app will help you to boost your device fully and gain a decent amount of speed.

4. Live Wallpapers:

Live wallpapers may be beautiful but they can slow down the performance and speed of your smartphone, especially if they are running on outdated hardware. Uninstall wallpapers that you are not using and don’t install any new ones as they can slow down your phone.

5. Rooting:

This is the best way to get some speed on your phone. Rooting your device is easy and will improve the performance, even on older smartphones. Once you have rooted your smartphone, you can then access custom ROM’s, which are often over clocked so that the processor runs faster. You can even adjust the settings to change the over clock speed. Certain apps like SetCpu, Titanium Backup can help you to uninstall system applications that you don’t want.

6. Digital Files and Bloatware:

Carriers and phone manufacturers can slow down your mobile. You can easily disable them in the settings menu. You can even root your phone in order to get rid of them, but you risk making the warranty void.

7. Cache:

All apps have a cache memory can many apps can use up a lot of cache that then affect how your smartphone works. Clearing the cache in the Settings can boost the speed of your smartphone. You can download many apps that help you to do this.

Many budget phones are turning out to be a smarter purchase decision. The XonPhone 5 has 16 GB of internal space, so you don’t have to worry about speed. Log on to www.oplustech.com find out more about it.

Differences Between Regular Phones and Smartphones

Smartphone house many features that have made them the weapon of choice. Despite this, normal phones still have many uses and are still in use today. The reasons why people choose either smartphones or normal phones are many; here are a few of the basic differences between the two:

Durability and Design:

Normal phones are still popular as they are robust, durable and are even designed to water proof and dust proof. Smartphones may have more function but are very delicate and even expensive; they still have a long way to go before they can be called durable. This is mostly to do with the large touch screens.

Features:

Android OS

1.3 GHz and higher CPU’s

1 GB RAM and higher

16 GB of internal storage or more

Micro SD 32 GB and higher

Dual SIM

2000 mAh battery and higher

5” screen (Full View, 1280x720 HD IPS OGS)

Connectivity (Micro USB, WiFi, Bluetooth, 2G and 3G)

Size and Shape:

This is where the variety lies in both smartphones and mobiles. Smartphones typically are thinner, wider and longer, while normal mobiles are the exact opposite. Smartphones have screens that also double as the interface; this is also why people want tablets. People want to have bigger and more portable screens, thus moving from normal mobiles to smartphones. Smartphones also come in more compact versions, with smaller screens with loads of features.

Camera:

Normal phones have cameras that are not very powerful and lack basic settings. The smartphone cameras have higher resolutions, even HD format and video recording. You have many options for image settings, scene modes and much more. Smartphones even have front facing cameras. Normal mobile have very standard cameras.

OS:

The OS on smartphones are more fluid, easier to use and highly customizable. The most popular platforms are iOS, Blackberry, Windows and Android. The iOS belongs exclusively to Apple and is found only on their products, as is with Blackberry. The Android platform is more open and has been installed on many devices, windows is can be found on the Nokia phones but it is slowly moving on to other smartphone manufacturers. The OS is a big factor that affects the purchase decision as it has an effect on the functionality, convenience and number of features that you can use. On normal phones, the OS has little to do with performance and the buying factor.

Summary:

Both types of phones have their own uses, normal mobiles are highly resilient and have longer battery life and are great for outdoor usage. Smartphones on the other hand, offer loads of information and are very resourceful.

Smartphones can even go beyond the average function and serve as multimedia and social networking platforms. They can be used to organize work and life responsibilities.

Innovative Ways to use your Smartphone Camera

The smartphone camera is much smarter and versatile than it looks. There are many tricks that you can use to transform the camera into a scanner, memory aid, search tool, colour identifier and more. Here are some of them:

Film Scanner feature (iPhone and Android):

If you have old 35 mm negatives and what to get a digital copy of them, you can use your smartphone camera. Install the Helmut Film Scanner app to turn your camera into a scanner. Then place the negative over a lit area like a light box or a screen monitor, take a photo of the negative in this way to get a full colour copy of the image. The app also allows you to edit the image using features like brightness, cropping, contrast color and others. You can also share these images through the Drop Box, Flickr, Facebook and EyeEm connectivity option on the app.

On the iOS, you can use the Photo JoJo app that uses the flash to blasts the negatives with light and then use the Lomo Scanner app to get the results.

Color Identifier (iPhone and Android):

You can use your camera to search for and use colours that will suit your home. Dulux has an app that lets you capture photos of your home, and other rooms so that you can then identify the colours that were used to paint them. This app has a colour picker that magnifies a part of the image and then you can match the color in the image with those you can find online. You can also buy this shade of paint.

Visual Search Tool:

The Google Search App utilizes your camera to turn your phone into a search engine. It is as simple as pointing your camera at an object, Google then searches its database to locate information about it. You can search through a photo and text mode and you can also use the app on iOS as well. This same app can also double as a QR scanner, OCR scanner, a translator and to solve Sudoku puzzles too.

Creative Camera:

The DblCam app lets you use your Smartphone camera is two ways. Unleash your creative skills with this app using both cameras, take two photos and merge them to create awesome effects. You can capture images in front of you and behind you, below and above you, left and right or any other angle that you can think of. The second photo follows the first photo by a second. Android users can use the Double Shot Camera that may not match the DblCam, but is just as good.

Font Identifier:

You have probably heard of the WhatTheFont app, it now has an app for iOS. The app can identify as well as tag different typefaces. All you have to do is to point the camera at any font in order to identify it of look for something similar. The app is not yet available on Android, but you can use it on the web.

There are many apps that let you use the smartphone camera in fun, creative ways. The XonPhone 5 features an 8 MP camera, you can log on to www.oplustech.com to find out about it.