What factors are important when choosing a device?

[Lizzie]

Hey everyone,

I hope you are doing well. 

When it comes to finding the right solution for your business, what devices you choose is an important decision. Every business has their own needs and requirements, and it can be a time consuming task. It's also likely that you have to adapt your devices as your needs change or devices come to the end of their current life within your company. 

With this in mind, I wanted to ask you:

What factors are important to you when choosing a device? Is there particular information about a device you are keen to know? What would be your tips for people looking to select devices for the first time? 

Perhaps you need devices that work in harsh conditions or tablets that double-up as a kiosk.  

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts below. 

Thank you,

Lizzie

[Moombas]

I think this is a really hard question to answer in general because there are so many factors to think about:

• needed Screensize
• use case (just show content, getting feedback, daily business for employees locally or even outside of specific locations)
• user (customer, employee in a store or similar, employee in a warehouse, trucker,...)
• minimum battery lifetime (per day)
• Android Anterprise Recommended (if it will be managed via MDM)
• Starting Android version and when will be the latest one (device life time)
• cost
• support

etc.

[Moombas]

Just to add to the "cost" factor: Look at the price per device per year not just on the price when device is bought. Example:

Device 1: Gets security patches and OS Updates for 3 years and costs 300€
Device 2: Gets security patches and OS Updates for 5 years and costs 400€

So, device 1 seem to be cheaper (300€ vs. 400€) if you just look on the price but if you compare it by lifetime, device 2 is cheaper (100€/year vs. 80€/year). (And more sustainable!)

[Lizzie]

Great overview here, @Moombas, thank you. Sorry this was tough question! 😁

Do you find that it's easy to track down the information on devices to meet the needs? Or is there a lot of research involved? 

Anyone else want to share their most important factors when choosing a device? Does it match many of the above?

[Moombas]

Thanks @Lizzie,
i think choosing the right device first time can be hard and consume time but for all following devices you can "just" compare if there's no realignement needed.

So, if you don't notice (yourself or because of user feedback) that a realignment is needed you can just go with the follow up model of the same manufacturer or look for equal devices from different manufacturers.

In general I can recommend to:

1. make some kind of key notes (display size etc., see list above) during finding process where all important things are noted down in a table. 
2. then go through each (maybe relevant) model and fill each column with the device specifications
3. choose a small amount of device for pilot tests (maybe manufacturers can hand out some devices for that, so you may not buy them)
4. final decision on user feedback and data on the table
5. After final decision, keep this table but throw out all devices not to be used
6. next time you may need to look for a new device start from step 2 again