I think that the real fact that can be gleaned from reading this discussion is that we have yet to be given the perfect smartphone that we deserve. Each major platform (apple, rim, google, symbian) has its own 'must have' features that the others could learn from. There are also hardware features that shine for each manufacturer of equipment that if combined correctly would be ideal.
I want a smartphone to have:
A great screen (at least 640 x 360, high refresh rate, good backlight)
An easy to use keyboard... my preference is physical keys. It's far easier to access symbols and other extended characters with the Curve's physical keyboard than any onscreen keyboard I've seen, by holding down an 'alt' key while pressing another key to get the special character, rather than entering into a whole other set of keys just to get a dollar sign, for instance. Especially so for me because I use my phone more for the web than writing emails or other forms of natural conversation, so when I'm entering web addresses that have lots of slashes or other symbols, I want them to be easy to access.
Expandable memory.
Replaceable battery.
A standard 3.5 millimeter audio jack.
Decent camera with quality lens. Megapixels don't matter so much, lens quality does. My parents VGA camera on their 2 year old LG 5200 takes better pictures than my Curve's 2 megapixel camera - the colors are richer and the lens gathers more light. Google the phrase 'The Megapixel Myth' to learn why better lenses and optics are more important than megapixel resolution.
Workhorse processor. Lots of RAM. The Storm suffers with its 128mb of RAM compared to Apple's 512. I multitask all the time - switching between the browser and a PIN conversation, while listening to MP3s at the same time - I want it to be snappy.
Related to the above - give us custom softkeys on the side! I love that I can tie my side keys on my Curve to the application switcher or the MP3 player and toggle between apps I'm using without having to go to the main screen first.
An easy to use, configurable interface. That's a Blackberry strength right there - I love how everything is simple and clean - yet important, powerful options are a click away with the menu key.
Connectivity options - bluetooth, wifi, hell, give us infrared! Infrared ports are going out of style, unfortunately, but they allow for custom software to use the phone as a remote control!
Standard interface jacks like MiniUSB or MicroUSB, not some proprietary nonsense like the iphone, omnia, etc.
3g, of course.
SMS, MMS, push email, IM options, etc.
A clear, loud speakerphone/ringer.
Noise cancellation tech - a secondary microphone on the back side of the phone that listens to what's going on in the room you're in and cancels it out for the listener on the other end of the line so they don't hear the party in the background.
Accelerometer - whether the phone is touch screen or not.
Document viewing and manipulation, and file handling - a weak point of both the iphone and Blackberry is the inability to store and manage basic filetypes with a file manager - that's a Windows Mobile strength. Yes, WinMo has strengths too!
Decent voice command.
And here's a big one that Android has brought to the table - open architecture that's easy to develop for and unrestricted in terms of user choice as to what can be run on the device. That's the BIG black mark against Apple in my book. I can load whatever someone develops for WinMo on a Windows device and Microsoft be damned! I'd have to jailbreak an iphone to be able to install a custom modified or made-from-scratch web browser on it. Blackberry's halfway there in the sense that you have free choice as to what you can run, but the developer support's not there yet.
What meets the most of these critereon, as far as I can tell, is the Nokia N97, as far as I can tell. I'm confident that 2009 will bring us closer to the smartphone ideal!
|
