What makes a business phone?

When selecting these handsets, we looked for a number of features:

• Performance, reliability and usability. A business handset gets a lot of use; we gave extra points for build quality, good battery life, and a sound user interface.

• Connectivity, and especially speed of connection. Not everyone needs high-speed data access or WiFi capabilities all the time – but many business users do, and in any case versatility is a virtue in this market.

• Applications. Good email and web browsers are essential, but so are less extravagant applications like file management, document readers, PC file transfer tools and even multi-field address books. Smartphones score here (we’re defining ‘smartphones’ loosely as phones on to which additional applications can be downloaded).

• Adequate network support. Business handsets should come with a good choice of tariffs, extra support, and the kind of service levels that inspire confidence among users whose business life may well rely on their mobile.