The Smartphone conundrum

Well the Smartphone screen is 176x220. The picture I took was a bit blurry, maybe I'll find a screen cap s/w for Smartphone to show the actual image. Like I said, it's only for the odd times when you have nothing better to do than rolling your thumbs in circles By no means is it for full blown web surfing.

I know carrying a PPC to the hotspot to do that kinda surfing is pretty silly. But somehow on the Smartphone, which you need for other reasons, reading up to date news directly from your favourite websites while waiting for your lunch and having the other hand in your pocket, the limitation of the screen seems to be in the back of my mind. Ok so maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. The point is that the phone browser is for a totally different kind of browsing, and the Smartphone one is one of the best.

To tell the truth, I have not much experience looking at the Nexio S160 (none at the Sig3) and just a bit more looking at the e830 that two of the people have in my local PPC club, and another has the Dell x50v. I thought the screens were similar, but it could just be my memory playing tricks (I'm old ). I might be getting that Asus A730 soon, so I'll have more first hand experience...

Oh, BTW, the SmartBook G138 does have GPRS, only that it's European frequencies, so I cannot use it here in N.America

Edited by takwu 2005-08-28 10:18 PM

yes i get your point there. i too sometimes would be happy with the possibility to do such things anywhere.
but: it's not often that i'd like to do these things (once a week?) and i don't have too much money either



i don't recommend the asus a730. get a real 730W, you at least get a spare battery with it. plus 128 mb ram. and wlan, of course. so the 730W is nice enough.
though if it'll just sit on your desk ithe 730 will be fine even if a costly gadget.
e830? it has 4", and the dell doesn't (3,7". in theory, you should see the diff!
in practice i never saw two ppc's at the same time so i don't know. or if i did i didn't compare them..
nor have i seen the sig3 with a vga ppc (or qvga for that matter) yet but i'll try to compare them sometime

G138: i know it has gprs. mhm, can it do sms as well? if it can, then it's a really nice feature. it's just too big to be a phone. sig3 has more chance to be my phone (if it had the hardware features.. or if i was willing to buy a gsm/gprs card for it)


Edited by cmonex 2005-08-28 10:41 PM

Hey, my piddle is a nice complement to my hpcs. Many times I just don't need the real features of my hpc, keyboard etall, and the piddle is a nice pos to entertain me and provide pim and games for short trips. I'd never have a piddle as a primary but it's a better secondary than any smartphone.

bleh, tiny screens, no thanks. I'll buy a gprs card for my hpcs when I really need a phone that web surfs n stuff.

The phone n ppc boys are snookered IMO. They can't have bigger screens without growiing their devices and loosing any size advantages. They can't keep upping the res on the ppcs without being impossible to read. Anyone want 1024x768 in a 4" screen? Lmao.

Things won't change for the better until projection virtual screens become widespread. Then the size of the device is moot. Point it at a smooth surface and blam, away you go. As large or small as you want. any res you want.

Or gimme a virtual eyepeice, any res I want, diopter adjustable, level of opacity to my liking.

Edited by wallythacker 2005-08-29 1:39 AM

Wally, I think you made an interesting point there, that when you do not need the full capabilities of your HPC, you use your PPC. In a *certain sense* , I am very happy with a HPC when I do not need the full power of a dektop/notebook.[See note below]

So, PC/Notebook -> HPC -> PPC ...

NOTE: Footnote moved Off Topic - HPC Zealots?

wally,
What exactly do you use the PPC for? Do you carry it along with the HPC, or do you take it in place of the HPC? I can't imagine myself doing either...

I don't think the mobile projector will work because I don't see a flat white wall everywhere I go, and the power consumption of such device isn't helping either.

The eye display thing seemed the answer at first, but in reality I think people still prefer the traditional way of seeing everything around us - not attached to our heads. Besides, it reminds me too much of the VirtualBoy

However I think there's a new way to solve the problem. It's called Auto Stereoscopic display (I think). Bascially it is a technology that allows a display to create a stereoscopic image, without the user wearing special glasses. Its main application obviously is to project a 3D image to the user. It's only in recent years that one company, Sharp, made such technology affordable enough for the public, in the form of desktop and laptop monitors:
http://www.sharp3d.com/

Another potential application of this technology is to allow a small display to be held very close to the user's eyes, while giving the impression of an image far away. This essentially gives the effect of the eye display model, without needing to attach it to the user's head. It will allow a high resolution screen on a small physical surface that seems a lot bigger. To put it into perspective, it will be like looking at your 15 inch monitor that is 2 feet away thru a 5 inch window that is only a couple inches away. This application of the technology is in my opinion the future of mobile device displays.

Edited by takwu 2005-08-30 3:57 AM

Hi Takwu,

If I'm driving in town or on short errands the piddle goes in my pocket always. I never need a pen/paper, daytimer or any of that crap. I always find a need to scribble notes or jot down a yard sale or a make a reminder for something. If I go boating and soak the piddle, who cares? Piddle works great for those simple things and for stuff too risky for the babies.

If I have time to kill waiting for something, out comes the piddle to play some games or listen to music. In theory I just sync it to my desktp when I get home and pull down the data to my hpc if it goes with me the next trip. (tho' syncing is driving me buggy, another tale.)

I generally take the hpc on longer trips (out of towners or all day affairs) for gps and doing real work when I have an hour to kill at a roadside lunch stop or I head to the beach and sit under a shady tree and read or write. The hpc always goes flying with me. Piddle is too small and fiddly to use while doing a million other things in the air.

Yea, that's pretty much how it works. Piddle for short local stuff, hpc for out of town or overnight stuff and hpc in the house exclusively. Tho' sometimes I stick the piddle in my pocket with MSN running when I'm moving around the house or yard. to keep in touch.

I suppose I could do all the short run stuff with the hpc but I tried that with the 690 and it struck me as too much work, haul it out, open it up, up the backlight to max, scribble a note or two, fold it up, put it in pocket, immediately remember something else I shoud record, repeat process. I never got used to the 690 keyboard. I loved the touch and feel but made too many errors. The 690 was too much fiddle and not enough hpc.

Would I ever upgrade my piddle to a vga one? Naw, then it's getting to close to being a real tool, course, only if you're lugging a wireless keyboard and can read the 4" screen properly. I can't.

I like my system, it works great for me. But I'm not in the daily rat race like so many others. If I were I might change my entire strategy, like finding a single machine to replace the piddle and hpc. But what choices have I? That's for another day.

But I firmly , with tongue planted in cheek, detest so called smartphones. I personally can't find any use for a screen smaller than a piddle. But that's me.

Oh, I never answered the original poll quetion with words. NO. I don't consider a true smartphone to be in the same league as a hpc.

Thx wally for the explanation.

I think the original question was rather it's ok to have both the Smartphone and the HPC, not trying to replace HPC with a SP.

I actually found the SP to be a good PIM device, in addition to a few other functions. You definitely don't need a much larger screen for picking your songs or playing a quick game of Pacman.

So I take it that there is one limitation for being a H/PC and a smartphone user... you cannto connect the H/PC over IR to the smartphone and dial-up through it?

Is that correct, or is that just Chiark's XDA?

Altho I never tried it, my Smartphone - Mio 8390, can be used as modem via IrCOMM or USB. Altho USB is for PC Windows only and you need to install their special software.

Interesting, can you give it a go, see if you can get your 728 to talk to the Internet over it?
If you can, I'll get it added to the HCL

mhm i thought the xda is able to work as a modem.. or is that only newer versions (xda II)? true there are some combo pda/phones that can't be used as a gprs modem.
anyway is a xda a plain smartphone?

Chris, defer my flogging 'till my next visit to the UK for dragging this thread back from the dead.

Now that I have a smartphone from my latest deal (Motorola mpx200, Tak, is yours a mpx200?) I can say with certainty that the screen is too small for me That's a shame because I admit the cool factor and size are appealing. The screen is really bright and clear but just too small for me.

I haven't tried to actually use the keypad to type anything but my past experience with cells wan't too rewarding. It takes me forever to type a contact in or try to type a message.

My Tungsten W is ideal for me. I have a phone and enough of a pda to play games and entertain myself when I find a few minutes. And all my PIM is there. I love the W screen and yes, the thumboard. I can type well enough to get something done. I also have graffiti if I don't feel like typing.

I can't play music on the W but that's a minor concern. I can carry my jukebox (ya, another thing to carry) if I really want music.

So, in a nutshell, my piddle does nothing now but collect dust. My W goes everywhere with me. I take a hpc if I really want music or I'm likely to hit a coffe joint with wifi.

If I'm taking extended trips it's still my W and a 720 and/or 6651 so I can write and surf. If it's a long trip I'll take my Amity also to have all my personal files.

So I have this cool smartphone I'm very unlikely to ever use

My Smartphone is the Mio 8390. I mentioned it in many places, including one of the posts in this theard You can also see the picture of it loaded with the HPC Factor page (the old one) at the beginning of the thread.

Also my device list is in my profile, so just click my name to see what I currently have (I no longer list what I used to have).

Like I said before, the screen is big enough for reading books and news etc. As a matter of fact AvantGo has recently released a beta for Smartphone, which is so very cool (and works perfectly so far in my experience). If you know any AvantGo user, who probably use it on a Palm or PPC (at least a Treo) and then show them you have the same thing on your flip phone... They'd, erm, flip... So, err, give a Go... Ok I better stop the puns

About the typing... well of course the keypad is not as good as a thumbboard. But T9 really helps (not sure if it's on the Motorola). Basically you just "dial" the word as if it's a phone number. For example if you want to type the word "pizza" you just dial 74992. If there is more than one word that match what you dial, you can select the intended one using up/down. I find the method quite acceptable for short notes. But it doesn't always work for names for obvious reasons, and the alphabet/number relation does need a bit of getting used to, even tho it's all printed on the keys.

What I found most useful is searching contact list with this method. When you are making a call, and start dialing, you can either use the number you dialed, or the names in your contact list that match what you dialed, or the numbers in the contact list. So for example if you dial 5646, you can either keep dialing the number, or pick from your contacts like "John" and "Johnny" (because they match the dialed number), or pick from numbers in your contacts that start with 5646.

And finally I must add that while the thumbboard might be able to do all this, it does require two hands to be used properly. Try typing "apple" on a Treo (or Tungsten W) with one hand and you'll see what I mean. In contrast, a keypad is almost restricted to single handed use. This I think is largely overlooked when people are picking PDA phones. A lot of people switch back to a dumb phone after they noticed this. So I think Microsoft Smartphone platform is really unique in combining the cellphone form factor and real PDA capabilities.

I'm with wally on this - I don't think I could ever get used to navigating the tiny screen of a Smartphone. I'm perfectly happy with my "Dumbphone."

Are all smartphones the same flip form factor? IIRC an Orange phone I saw was one piece. Anyhow, the Mio looks darn close to a Mpx200, so probably about the same size all around including keypad.

I totally agree the smartphone display is razor sharp. It blew me away when I first turned it on. But... I have prespeopia (sp) so I can't see the SP display without reading glasses. My arms aren't long enough

I *can* see and type on my W w/o glasses when I hold it at waist level. I tried with the SP and no go. Maybe if I had better sight I'd be inclined to favour the SP more.

Tak, honestly, if I could use the SP as well as I can the W I think I'd switch over. After all, it's smaller, has more features, (speakerphone/mp3/video 'n whatnot) and as you say in a pinch you can create short messages on it. My eyes won't get better so a larger screen (within reason) and a thumboard (I can use it one-handed as I have giant hands) are easier on me.

I will carry them both for a bit and see how I get on. I can see the value of just toting the SP for around town trips. It does have eveything feature wise I could need and it's tiny.

But I'll admit I've really grown fond of the W. My only minor complaint is I have to use an earbud with it. That's not so bad in the summer with light clothes but the cord got tangled a bit when I wore a hat and scarf.

edit: I forgot to ask. How is the choice for SP games? To drop my W I'd need to have a decent assortment of time wasters

Edited by wallythacker 2006-04-11 6:23 AM