It’s no wonder that these phones are extremely popular and that every single mobile phone manufacturer has introduced one or two models to get a piece of this well-paying pie. Some phones are costlier than most computers, but there is no dearth of takers for these gadgets in spite of their steep prices.

Although many people are quick to get their hands on the latest Smartphones as soon they hit the market, they usually have no idea of how to utilize them to their full potential. They’re finally relegated to being just phones, chic and sleek no doubt, but only phones all the same.

Some people load their phone with too many third party software and applications that are available as free downloads on the Internet. While this allows your cool phone to do even cooler things, it clogs up the memory and makes your phone more sluggish and slow. You may also see your phone hanging and crashing more often.

The key to using your phone more efficiently is to manage its memory. While some gadgets like the iPhone come with huge internal memories, others have limited on-phone memory capacities and are dependent on external storage cards to expand their holding capacity. Most users are not tech-savvy enough to change default settings that are on the phone and that store your Internet browsing history, temporary files and cookies in your main memory. Of course, you are asked where you want to save programs, so you can choose to do so on the memory card.

But if you use your phone to surf the Internet excessively, your internal memory gets really full and your phone starts to act up and become slower by the day. If you know your way around your phone, you could use the tips found here to shift your browsing history, cache, and cookies to your memory card and also enable future files to be stored on the card. The process involves creating file folders with the same names on your card and then deleting the ones that exist on your main memory.

If you’re not sure about your navigation skills (the problem with Smartphones is that they’re sometimes too smart to be understood fully), get someone who is not technologically challenged to help you out rather than risk ruining your phone.

A Smartphone becomes more interesting and intriguing the more you use it, so learn your way around it by taking some time to get acquainted with it as soon as you bring it home with you.

This post was contributed by Tiffany Davis, who writes about accredited online universities. She welcomes your feedback at TiffanyMDavis82 at gmail.com

I have a XV6700 Mobile Phone with a Modified ROM image of Windows Mobile 6.1 along with a Verizon plan consisting of little talk time and primarily data.  I use my phone mainly for email, next to remotely controlling lights in various locations I reside (including but not limited to my college dorm room).  I rarely use it to talk / text, and that is the primary reason why you get a faster email response from me than you would ever get by calling me.  I feel weird holding a Windows computer to my face and talking to it, so I generally ignore phone calls

Anyways, The number one useful application on my phone is called Meeting Mute.  It is shareware, meaning you have to pay 8 dollars for it.  You can get it from: http://www.pocketconcepts.com/MeetingMute.html This was written for pocket pc 2003 and I had to adknowledge that there is a bug in this program when ran on Windows Mobile 5 and 6, which is the category mute functions don’t work because Microsoft changed the database backend for categories.  I really like this application because it monitors my live calendar, then mutes my phone if I’m supposedly in an appointment.  Being a college student, this application mutes my phone while I’m in class, and I never have to fear being embarrased by having my phone ring during class.  I’ve never had that happen (mostly because I don’t give my number out freely), however just incase, its useful to have!

The next application I couldn’t live without is called 1&1 Sync, which is an addon to 1and1.com’s MailXChange email service.  This is a Microsoft Exchange – like mail software that is open source.  This syncs my smartphone’s contacts, files, calendar, email, tasks, and texts (if I want) to my online email inbox, and it auto syncs every 5 minutes to keep my email up to date on my phone.  With this, I have eliminated the need for internet browser based email like gmail, atmail mobile, hotmail mobile, etc.  It has also eliminated the need for me to sync my phone to my comptuer manually since it automatically happens with the pc’s software to do the same sync with outlook 2007/2003.  One small missing feature is a bookmark sync, which I am still looking at implementing sometime in the near future!  I seriously recommend this service from 1and1 because it works so flawlessly, and this software for my phone is great!

The next application that i use is free!  Its pocket putty.  Pocket putty is a mobile based ssh client from http://www.pocketputty.net/.  This software helps me do server administration from my phone when my laptop is not convient to pull out and use.  I can easily login to my servers and look at top and kill processes / restart services from my phone quickly and easily.  Since it supports ssh keys, I have keys auto configured so I don’t end up struggling to type in complex passwords that I can never remember.  I would recommend pocket putty to anyone who is a linux system admin (or windows admin with an ssh server running with powershell).

Next up is mundu’s IM client.  I use trillian on my pc, however on my phone, there is nothing else that is closer to trillian other than Mundu.  You can get Mundu for 20 bucks from http://mundu.com/ I use it for IM while I’m in the car and don’t feel like getting on a laptop, and don’t need to be on long.  For example, I often use mundu for sending messages to other admins with quick messages that I may not remember for later.

Next up is a great program called tcpmp.  It is a free media player.  My main use of it is for shoutcast streams.  I often play the 977 shoutcast streams from shoutcast’s main website.  This is a great player with a lot of options, including a built in equalizer for when you have good quality headphones and want a better sound from them.

Blackme is the next logical program.  This free program will disable your entire phone except for the power button (sort of like a lock).  With this program, you can easily start a media stream then black your phone and save battery power while continuing to listen to music.  Its great for long term listening to music while walking, running, jogging, etc.  Please note that I do not run or jog, I simply walk   Yes, I’m a bit lazy lol.

MyMobiler is another great free application.  With this application, you can use your pocket pc or smartphone directly from your desktop.  It will show you your pocket pc’s screen on your desktop computer and with that, you can easily install applications / use your phone without touching it.  I use it often to project it onto a screen to show other people features on my phone.  I also use it to take screenshots of my phone for friends asking what I have on my phone.

I do use skype mobile on my phone.  It is a free program that enables skype on your phone.  The nice part about skype mobile is that I can use my unlimited skype account to make world wide calls for free with my data connection instead of paying for minutes which cost a lot more.  This program has ok sound quality, however it is a great addon for a phone if it can handle it.

Pocket opera is great for those who don’t like pocket IE that comes with the mobile phone.  It gives IPhone like functionality of a browser with a little speed sacrifice.  It is a great program for when I want to view a full website very small then double tap the screen to zoom into the site.  As I said, it is a bit slow, and it does cost to get this great browser!

Finally, the last program that I’m going to mention is a free IRC client for your phone called ZSIRC.  Although I’ve only used this program once (an administration emergency on an IRC server that I manage was my reason), I like it.  If I took the time to use my bluetooth full size foldup keyboard, I would be able to easily use this application anywhere to replace trillian as my IRC client.  This free program connects you to an irc server and lets you communicate with others in the room you join.

Thats all the applications that I use on my phone aside from Pocket Internet Explorer and Pocket Windows Media Player which come with the phone.  Comments on other programs might be useful to others

Thanks for reading as always