Why I don't want an iSomething, part II
Bjorn mentions that he doesn't want the nokia internet tablet, because it doesn't have a phone and he doesn't want to carry two devices with him.
Bottom left, my portable media player. 4G solid-state storage, plays movies (the display shows a scene from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine that I converted from DVD), audio, FM radio, and after a firmware update can do games and some random applications. Does bluetooth. Does not do phone calls.
Upper right, my cell phone. A simple Nokia 6021. Does bluetooth, makes phone calls, and (as the display somewhat shows) can do calendaring, too. With SyncML, I can synchronize it with my laptop.
Together, they perform anything I'd possibly want from a smartphone (and don't anyone tell me 'SSH', because doing ssh on any screen smaller than, 7" and without decent keyboard is laughable).
Together, they're smaller and weigh less than a smartphone.
Together, they're less expensive than a smartphone (€125 for the phone, €85 for the portable media player).
Why does anyone buy a smartphone?
Some to a greater extent than others, and some do it at greater extents than others. How many time have you wished you could do an easy hack on your cell phone?
Smartphones ain't the answer, but they feel like an answer..
Eh, you don't? You get a decent camera, instead. Cell phone cameras are among the crappiest out there—and in the few cases where they aren't, the cell phone's price is in the hundreds of euros.
Which is completely and utterly stupid.
Never. The one time that I wanted to write an application for my cell phone, I just wrote it in JavaME.