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Posts: 607 | Thanked: 450 times | Joined on Sep 2009 @ Washington, DC
#135
Originally Posted by Laughing Man View Post
I can also make phone calls with my desktop, laptop, and n800. If we're going by the criteria it can make calls then all of those are considered phones.

I consider it more by use case. Yes, my desktop, laptop, n800, and N900 can make phone calls, but what's my primary use of those devices?

Computer work, running applications found mostly on computers. Hence I consider them computers, and not phones.

Granted your primary use of the N900 may indeed be a phone, and if that were the case I do think you should've picked another device because the N900 makes a poor phone outside of basic calling functionality. And I have recommended people away from the N900 who wanted more of a phone/smartphone devices rather than a computer/internet tablet.
I absolutely agree but I think you overstate the computing power of the N900 (just like the superphone hype over the Nexus). For casual browsing the N900 shines. For computing work, I'd still rather have a pocketable computer.

Since the debut of the Intel Atom, there have been more and more of these announced (literally every day at the moment since it's CES time). They don't need EasyDebian or WinMo, they run Debian and Windows. Plus the screens are bigger so old people like myself can actually read a document in OpenOffice.

Someday there may be a true converged device. For now, it doesn't exist. The N900 is a more capable phone with data capabilities than most but whether you call it a smartphone, superphone, Internet phone, or whatever, to my mind it still needs to function first and foremost as a phone.