During the Google I/O 2015 keynote, Google’s Senior Vice President of Android, Chrome and Google Apps, Sundar Pichai, revealed one interesting statistic: there are over 4,000 different/unique Android devices in the wild. That means if you’re to go shopping for a new Android smartphone at the moment and aren’t as knowledgeable about smartphones as some of us are then you’ll be in shock. There’s an Android smartphone at every price point imaginable. What if the people behind Android wanted to make it easier for you to pick your next Android smartphone purchase from your carrier of choice at your preferred price and in the size and colour you wanted easy?
Google is doing exactly that with a new “Which Phone” tool on the official Android website.
I interacted with the tool briefly and it does its work as expected. Google believes that people buy smartphones to be able to not just do everything that Android will allow them to do (almost everything by the way) but a few things they engage in daily. Like taking photos, listening to music, sending emails at work, gaming, web browsing, just making calls, social media chit chat and texting or even fitness purposes for those keen on not adding an extra pound. Based on those factors, choosing either one of them will have you taken through a series of at most two or three questions about how frequently you use the said feature. Do this for two or three more features and the tool will have some smartphone suggestions for you.
Of course the tool wouldn’t come in handy if it didn’t give you an option to purchase your smartphone of choice immediately. It has that feature. You’re prompted to choose your carrier of choice immediately after choosing your phone. You can then proceed to see what is on offer and even change your preferences based on the phone’s size, price and carrier. For those of us who are outside the States, you can email yourself your smartphone choice so that you can proceed to order elsewhere.
The tool is pretty on point. Stating my preferences for my next smartphone as one that should have a great camera, allow me to track my fitness and the ability to be productive at work yielded the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge and the LG G4. When I downgraded my choice for more affordable phones, I was presented with the Alcatel OneTouch Evolve 2 and the Samsung Galaxy S5 mini. Altering my preferences to something that would require a phone with excellent battery life like all-day web browsing saw my choices narrowed down to the Galaxy Note 4 and the Galaxy Note Edge which pack monstrous batteries.
