Phones have developed quickly over the years. I still remember my first phone with an LCD display where about the only customisation you could do is type a long string of characters to change a ringtone. Storage was only used for your contacts and text messages and the only games you’d have would be those which were installed on it. As the years progressed screens got better, storage increased and the phone turned into something which could do everything your mp3 player, photo camera and computer could. The mobile phone has become something almost everyone carries with them and they can provide you with lots of entertainment in various forms. Of course my favorite choice of entertainment are movies, so time to take a look at some of the best smartphones for watching movies on the go. A good display and battery will be most important and I take a look at some phones with features that stand out.

Galaxy Note II

When watching movies most people agree that bigger is bettter (why else would people head to the cinema and have big screens at home), so the obvious choice is the Galaxy Note 2, which just falls into the smartphone category. It has a 5.55 inch HD Super AMOLED display (720p resolution) and an aspect ratio of 16:9 and will support a lot of formats out of the box (MPEG4, H.263, H.264, VC-1, DivX, WMV7, WMV8, WMV9, VP8, 3GP(MP4), WMV(ASF), AVI, FLV, MKV, WebM). It has 16GB of memory so that should be enough to store a lot of movies and if you are running out you can always insert a microSD card (up to 64GB). When watching movies the battery should last around 11 hours, so you should even be able to watch a couple of movies on a long flight. The screen itself has about 265 PPI (pixels per inch). Although there is discussion about it, the human eye can’t see individual pixels on a screen from a normal distance when it is 300 PPI or more. I think though that you probably won’t notice that small difference, but it might be important to some people. With an HDMI adapter you can also hook it up to your HDTV.

Now I can imagine that not everyone is willing to carry such a big device with them, since it won’t fit easily in some pockets/bags, so which slightly smaller phones are available?

HTC One

The HTC One is an obvious choice as it has a 4.7 inch, Full HD 1080p screen and speakers at the front of the phone should you want to watch a movie together with other (else I would suggest wearing headphones). The phone has either 32GB or 64GB of memory (not expandable) and looks very slick. Out of the box it doesn’t support as many formats as the Galaxy Note 2 does, but with some apps (which I will look into in another installment of My Techviews) it will likely play others as well. It will be able to playback movies for about 10 hours. The PPI is 468, so if you have HD material you want to play on this phone it will look good. If you get a Media Link HD adapter and connect it to your TV you will even be able to stream your movies to the big screen, which is also possible by buying an adapter to plug a HDMI cable directly into the phone.

Sony Xperia Z

Slightly bigger than the HTC, the 5.0 inch Xperia Z is waterproof, which means you are able to watch movies even when it is raining (or when you are in the shower), which should make the obsessive moviefans happy. Just like the other options it has HDMI out. Unfortunately the battery is not as good as the previous phones as you can only watch movies for about 5,5 hours. If you do not care about it being waterproof (which I can imagine a lot of people aren’t) and are only looking for long video playback you might want to look at another phone.

Motorola RAZR MAXX

If battery life is most important to you when playing back video than you should consider the Motorola RAZR MAXX, which according to gsmarena.com will last for over 16,5 hours. With a 4.3 inch screen and a PPI of 256 it might be smaller than the other phones on this list, but you will be able to enjoy a lot more non stop movie watching (also via HDMI out). Unfortunately this phone isn’t easily available everywhere.

Conclusion

Looking at the amount of smartphones available, it is up to you to decide what to get. If you are getting an Android phone there are a lot of applications available to play the most popular file formats. You probably will not only be looking for a smartphone just to play movies. Before you buy a phone read up on it, play with it in a shop and see if you like how it works and if you think the display looks good. Even recent lower priced Android handsets will be able to play video files, so if you are on a budget you can still enjoy movies on the small screen. If you are looking for an Apple device, the most solid advice is usually to get the latest version as its firmware will be kept up to date just slightly longer. Do be aware that with an iPhone you will have to put every movie on your phone using iTunes (which some people will not like) and that you will have to get extra apps in order to play a lot of common formats (like divx and mkv). I have not looked at Windows 8 phones, so you will need to do some research on your own for those.