How to buy the best mobile phone Choosing the best mobile phone

There are hundreds of mobile phones to choose from, so how do you go about picking the best one?

It's a tough decision, but years of extensive mobile phone testing means that Which? can provide you with a huge amount of information to help you choose the right mobile phone handset.

Mobile phone brand overviews

A good place to start is by reading our mobile phone brand overviews, where we've put together a handy overview of the main mobile phone manufacturers. We look at the typical mobile phones they produce and highlight what you can expect from one of their handsets.

It's also worth reading the results of our annual phone survey, in which over 8,000 members of the public give satisfaction and reliability ratings for each of the phone manufacturers.

Mobile phone features

Modern mobile phones can be used for far more than just making mobile phone calls - almost all come with a built-in camera and music player, and most mobile phones can now access the internet and send emails.

Decide which mobile phone features you're likely to use - and which you can do without. For example, if you love taking photographs but aren't too bothered about accessing the internet then you'll probably be best off with a camera phone.

Remember to look carefully at what feature set each phone offers and be aware that you will probably have to make compromises. For instance, BlackBerry smartphones are widely regarded as the best phones for business users, but don't expect them to offer the best entertainment features.

You can compare features and test scores by looking at our mobile phone reviews.

Access to a broad range of apps is one of the main benefits that smartphones have over basic handsets.

Smartphone overview

If you're in the market for a new phone it's very likely that you've heard the term 'smartphone' by now. Smartphones are devices that, as the name suggests, can perform an array of multimedia and communication tasks. They're increasingly becoming more like pocket PCs than phones.

For instance, nearly all smartphones will let you surf the internet, check your email, play games, take pictures, record video, listen to music, view maps and download an array of applications.

If all you really want is to text and make voice calls then it's probably not worth buying an expensive smartphone. However if you're unfamiliar with smartphones it is well worth researching what kinds of things they can do, as you may find some features, which you weren’t previously aware of, very useful.

Cheap phones

At the other end of the scale are budget phones. These devices are generally only good for making phone calls and texting, though some also come with low quality cameras and have limited internet functionality.

Read our mobile phone reviews to compare how each model stacks up to the competition.