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Question: I am currently thinking about buying my first smartphone. Some friends have suggested that Samsung's J5 or J3 are worth considering. At the moment, I use a very basic Nokia phone. I want to use a smartphone, but I do not know what to buy. I do not want anything too sophisticated or too expensive, but just something that suits my 60 year age group.

Reply: The two models you mention, the Samsung J5 and J3, are low-cost phones.

They will do the basics pretty well. If it was only two choices, the J5 would certainly be the best option because it has a better chance of surviving longer.

But it's an economical phone for a reason. You might run out of storage sooner than you'd like. (Technically, it has 16 gigabytes, which you'll see in the marketing literature as "16 GB." It's a small amount of storage these days and usually results in messages stating that your phone is full in a short time period.)

In this context, Samsung also manufactures another model of this range, the Galaxy J6, which is still a little better, especially because it has a better battery life, a better screen and more storage (32 GB, twice more than J5). It's only 30 € more to buy (199 €).

At this price level you have a few other options. Huawei has a very good budget model called the Smart P which has a nice screen and good overall specifications (including enough storage).

If it was my money at this price range, it might be the one I would receive. You may be wondering: and an iPhone? In general, beginners have a little easier to master the iPhone than "Android" phones. (An Android phone is a Samsung, Huawei, Sony or any other brand that Apple. "Android" refers to the "operating system", ie the interface that you see and use when you turn on the physical phone.)

But the minimum price of an iPhone is much higher than the minimum cost of an Android phone. At present, the current "cheapest" iPhone model that you can buy costs more than 500 € (the iPhone 7).

You can get cheaper and older versions, such as the iPhone 6 to 399 € in Carphone Warehouse or even the small screen iPhone SE at 299 € at some retailers. But these phones have been officially stopped by Apple. It will probably be a year or two before the company stops providing updates. (They will still work, but you will not benefit from new features, such as security or security features.)

One of the real benefits of iPhones is that one or more people in a family already have an iPhone. "Facetime" is the version of Apple's free call system and text messaging. As long as your phone is connected to your home Wi-Fi network or mobile data (included in your mobile carrier's standard plan), you can make calls or text messages to other iPhone users anywhere in the world. free.

To be clear, you can do pretty much the same thing on any smartphone using competing services such as WhatsApp.

Otherwise, you will encounter one or two other initial challenges when you get your first smartphone. The first is your Sim card.

Almost all new phones now take what's called a nano sim card. This number is probably lower than your current Nokia phone.

You can ask your operator to give you a new SIM card of the appropriate shape and size, or have a phone center cut the central bit of your old Sim card (the copper bit that looks like a circuit) so to that it corresponds to the size and shape of the "nano Sim" slot of your new phone. They usually do it for free.

Then there is the account of your smartphone. If you have a Samsung phone (or any other phone using the Android interface), you will need a Google account to download apps. It is possible that you already have one. If you have a Gmail account, you have a Google Account: it's exactly the same user name and the same password.

If you do not, installing one is quite simple (and free).

Then there are your phone contacts. If you are like most people, many of them will be stored on your Sim card, while others may be on your physical phone.

The easiest way to transfer them is to access the "Contacts" setting on your Nokia phone, choose "Options", "Settings", "Contacts to display" and toggle the "tick" from "Sim" to " phone". Then return to "Contacts" and you will only see contacts saved on your phone. You can now copy them to your Sim card by choosing "options", "mark all", "options" again and "copy". Then select "Sim Memory" – they should now be copied and ready to be transferred to your new smartphone. My advice, though, is that once you've done this, be sure to copy your SIM card contacts into your Google account (this will guide you through your smartphone settings). The reason is that he records them online (for free). So, if you physically lose your SIM card or your phone, it does not matter – your contacts will all be back as soon as you turn on your new phone.

Recommendation: Samsung J6 (199 € at Carphone Warehouse)

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