The recent launch of the Samsung Galaxy S4, and the excitement surrounding it, has got me thinking about the way that people choose a new phone. I have bought dozens of handsets over the years, ranging from very simple feature phones to the latest smartphones, and I have to wonder how many of them were bought just because of a flashy commercial. Though it pains me to admit it, the answer is probably too many.

According to the research firm Informa, instant messaging apps such as WhatsApp have now overtaken traditional SMS services as a way of sending messages on smartphones. In 2012, an average of 19 billion messages were sent per day using chat apps, whilst SMS messages averaged at 17.6 billion per day. If predictions prove correct, that gap could grow even further in 2014, with an estimated 50 billion messages a day being sent via non-traditional message services.

So does this mean that SMS messages, along with their 160 character limits, are soon to become a thing of the past? Phones like the Samsung Galaxy S3 already come with different messaging options pre-installed, as do BlackBerry and newer Windows Phone 8 handsets. Will we now have to unlearn text-speak and the SMS abbreviations used so much today? Or do you think traditional SMS messages will remain useful as long as there are still cell phones around which can't use instant messaging apps?

Having recently added some new beginners guides for Android cell phones, including guides on dialing phone extensions automatically and connecting to Wi-Fi on your phone, I have spent some time thinking about what sort of guides and tips would be most useful to cell phone newbies visiting the site for the first time.

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As someone who buys a new phone three or even four times a year, I am often asked by friends and family whether they can have my old or unwanted handsets. A couple of weeks after giving my father my unwanted iPhone 4s (following days of him pestering me for it) I asked him how he was getting on with it. I asked if he thought the Safari browser was good and if he had used Siri much. His response that "it's a phone, I use it to make calls" made me wonder a) why he had wanted it when he already had a cell phone that could make calls perfectly well, and b) how many of the so called "killer features" the average smartphone user uses.

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