Thread: Dumbing Down Smartphones
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DaveP1 is offline DaveP1
2009-12-04 , 19:12
Posts: 607 | Thanked: 450 times | Joined on Sep 2009 @ Washington, DC
#22
Originally Posted by Laughing Man View Post
I've yet to see any other "smartphone" do what the n900 can potentially do with running things like KDE and Debian (based off of what was possible with the n800/n810). Well besides the G1 which can also run Debian and OpenOffice.
And I guess that's the point. The N900 is one among potentially many devices.

Originally Posted by Laughing Man View Post
Edit: I guess an easy way to phrase it would be: Would adding cellular voice capability to any device that is decently portable . . . make it a smartphone or a computer? . . . That's how I see the n900, just the new internet tablet with cellular capability (more so for the mobile data rather than voice). Though understandably not everyone thinks the same way.
Since I'm typing this on my OQO with an embedded 3G radio (Sprint), I can say that a pocketable computer with cellular data is a great device. Adding voice capability would make it a phone and computer combination but it would be huge compared to most phones.

OTOH, taking a PDA or PMP and adding voice and data capability to it, like the Palm TX > Palm Treo > Palm Pre or the iPod Touch > iPhone or the N810 > N900 doesn't suddenly make the device a computer and a phone. It makes it a smart phone (which is not a bad thing). They are just too limited compared to other, available pocketable computers to be considered computers.
Last edited by DaveP1; 2009-12-04 at 19:14.