Students’ thoughts about the importance and costs of their mobile devices’ features and services

In recent years, handheld devices have become one of the fastest growing communication gadgets. Mobile technology is becoming widespread and research in this area is urgently needed. Using a survey instrument, the thoughts of male and female students regarding the importance and costs of mobile devices were investigated. It was found that students tend to consider the following features important: battery life, mp3 player, video camera, photo camera, storage memory, Bluetooth, design and elegance, clock, calendar, organizer and reminder. Also, they are eager to spend an amount of money so as their mobile device to support them. On average, both genders would pay extra money for such features. However, the majority of females think less of the price than males do. On the contrary, most of the respondents do not consider the following important: touch screen, voice commands, chat, teleconference, encryption and cryptography, common use of files, printing. Therefore, they would not spend any money for these features. Interested decision makers would try to increase their interest on such features. Moreover, all respondents appear to own a mobile phone while most of them do not have Internet connection at home. In general, some gender differences are found in the importance and costs of the mobile devices, but they are not statistically significant.