Do you have the “smarts” to succeed in life?

Do you have the “smarts” to succeed in life?

And by “smarts”, I mean smartphone. Since the release of the Ericsson R380 in the early 21st century, smartphones have matured over the past decade to the refined smartphones we see of today. Near the end of 2010, smartphones saw an increase to 25% out of overall phones in sales, up from 22%. In 2010, smartphones made up half of revenue generated of the overall mobile handset, which is quite substantial if you consider that one in four mobile devices sold are smartphones.

Why smartphones? They provide the user with the capability to do computer related tasks, such as reading emails or scheduling an appointment. While certain “dumbphones” also have the capability of reading emails or surfing the web, smartphones allow the users to install apps for various other tasks and services they might need. Does “There’s an App for that” ring a bell to anyone?

It should. In 2007 Apple released the iPhone to the markets. The Apps Marketplace launched alongside the iPhone, providing apps from various developers for many tasks ranging from taking notes with Evernote to listening to music with Pandora. While these were also possible on a computer, smartphones gave users these capabilities in a much more convenient matter, much due to smartphones’ substantially smaller size and longer battery life.

A caveat to using a smartphone is the many cellphone carriers that require a data plan alongside the purchase and activation of a smartphone. This can increase the monthly rate to nearly double of what you would pay for the service without a data-plan. But without the data plan, smartphones aren’t able to reach their full potential without access to the web outside of wi-fi hotspots.

Data plan on a smartphone provides a user gains a significant advantage over laptops and desktops that aren’t properly equipped with 3G network cards, and that’s the ability to access the Internet from nearly anywhere, hotspot or not. With this capability, the user can check their email or stocks on a whim without having to wardrive through town to find an open network. If a user wishes to, they can also tether their smartphone to their computing device in order to provide it with Internet, bearing in mind of course the rates of their data usage plan.

With the recent release of the Windows Phone 7 and the expansion of the iPhone 4 to Verizon coming this week, it’ll be interesting to see how society reacts to the ever-expanding smartphone market in 2011.