Your Smartphone, Your Best Friend

To many, a smartphone is merely a means to take communicate via instant messaging like WhatsApp and Blackberry Messenger and/or Facebook and tweet. But for a good number, yet to be quantified, the smartphone has many faces. If you're like me, it does the above and a whole lot more.

A Smartphone is

1. Your Office....

More than one email account is set up. Be it personal and work mail connected to your corporate network via some form of secure authentication, you're able to respond on the go, receive and author documents whether it's spreadsheets or PowerPoint presentations, scan and copy items. It's your business centre without the printer. I blog straight from my phone to the Internet. The beauty of technology. It is my office in my pocket.

2. Your Organiser...

Phones now help us know what the time is. Coupled with Facebook integration, we get reminders for our friends' birthdays and special events like anniversaries. The phone truly came to save us from our lapses in memory. Let's not forget that we can use them to draw up to do lists that came be backed up to your cloud storage service of choice. You have diary apps if keeping personal journals is something you can't do without.

3. Your Playmate...

As the old adage goes, all work and no play makes your smartphone boring stack of transistors. For those moments when you social networking is not entertaining enough we all need a set of games to call upon. From the hardcore gamer with a scaled down version of FIFA 15 or Assassins Creed to those that play Candy Crush or Snake. There is something for every one. If you don't have a single game on your phone, it's time to get one for emergency purposes.

4. Your Pocket Book...

Keeping track of your finances made easy. You have expense apps galore. Better apps would be those that integrate with your bank and perform your reconciliation automatically but that's for the future. I found vehicle management apps to track what you're spending on your car, give you service reminders and act as trip logs.  Online shopping is no longer restricted to the desktop. Amazon, eBay, Gumtree and even TradeCarView have apps on the leading platforms to get you on the go.

There are many functions your smartphone is able to perform and mine is by no stretch is an exhaustive list. If you use it for these 4 then I believe you're getting value for your purchase. If not, your decision to upgrade phones should be held off and until the current phone totally depreciates.