Separate (phone,mp3,pda) -v- Integrated All-singing-all-dancing???

MrAbc

Hello... my name is MrAbc... and I'm addicted to phone websites!! :-(



LOL I'm boggled at this stage from reading reviews and spec sheets :eek:

The general question for me now is: are people favouring specialised devices for each function or is there, instead, sufficent incentive to go for the one do-it-all unit??


I expect my story is tragically commonplace: I was looking to buy an MP3 player and then I thought, well, why not upgrade my phone and get one with good MP3 function(dedicated buttons) and good memory card facilities(say 8GB).

But, then, see, a good MP3 player will have an FM tuner and that's really handy... and video playback, and that's kinda cool, if not so handy probably. Right, so the mp3-phone should have FM, and video if possible.


Only it strikes me that I still will have my little old PDA for eBook reading material and note scribbling and such, and so why not ditch that and look at the smartphones (or phone-PDA's).
But is that stretching it? Jack of all trades but maser of none? Battery performance? Chunky design?


Check this: I listed out every function possible v's possible devices to do these and it came down to requiring either a smartphone/pda to do everything or a combination of select devices (according to taste).

Function:
Voice calls(GSM)
SMS text
Email
Web
WiFi
FM +-RDS
Video calls(3G)
MP3 playing
Photo
Voice recording
Applications (eg PocketPC,PalmOS,similar)
eBook reading (.txt/.pdf)
sci calc
Video playing
File storage/transfer


With consideration, I leaning towards separating the functions with:
PHONE = GSM, SMS, Email, Web, MemCard, good FM(+-RDS), (+-3G), less-needed: (+-MP3), (+-Photo)
PDA = MP3, Video, VoiceRec, Apps, eBooks, calc, MemCard, WiFi.
Proper camera does the photos, as usual really.

I got to thinking that the do-all units are just a little bigger and chunkier and so less pocketable, whereas two (slimmer) devices can go in a pocket each, if needed. And two batteries are better than one? And I'm likely to get better quality in simpler product designs? Ah, I dunno... the SE P1i looks nice.

Now, back to spec sheets for me, I suppose...
...unless anyone cares to suggest the ideal Phone(3G/FM/Web) and PDA(MP3/Video/eBook/Apps/WiFi) pair to buy :-D

mkennedy

Convergence is the way things are going alright it seems.

BTW you've only gone and left out GPS/A-GPS, DVB-H/T/DAB and Wimax/HSDPA and super-duper iphone-type GUI from your list

No, obviously it's a trade off.
No all-in-one is going to match a decent digital camera for example.

And battery-life is always going to suffer.
That's really something manufacturers should be working on now tbh (having finally sorted out other stuff like memory limitations with the introduction of micro-sdhc etc).

But many all-in-ones do things like MP3 and movie playback admirably with 3rd party apps (and now with the increased storage on smartphones they rival dedicated units in this).
And a lot of smartphones have fm radios builtin nowadays as well.

I'd also say proper GPS in certain smartphones nowadays also rivals standalone GPS units (in terms of getting you from A to B atleast; what else do you need GPS for tbh).

I'd definitely prefer one device over many (if only to cut down on chargers ) but everyones different- there's always a trade-off.
Depends on how interested in one functionality you are I suppose.

strecker

As to convergence: I felt straight away that phone plus mp3 makes sense. You listen to music, phone rings, you hear it cause the musicplayer stops, and when you hang up, the music continues... Makes sense (I know you can pair certain ipods with certain phones to achieve the same, but hey....)!

camera integration, well, that's slightly different in my opinion. They will never beat a standalone cam... And though the quality of my n95/8's cam amazes me, I still use mostly my e61 that doesn't have a cam at all, but a surprisingly good musicplayer (for a "business-phone")... Also, you don't wanna be filming that perfect impromptu situation and the bloody boss rings...

as to the obsession with gps (nokia "promise" one in every highend model from now on!!!): I don't get it...even the 95/8's screen is too small for driving conditions, so to make full use of it you'll end up pairing it with another device if you're serious about it. If you just occasionally need directions, get gmaps... Gee, we are a bit "lost" as a species, but do we all need gps, always? Plus you don't have the choice of buying a cheaper highend phone without gps... Why not? They had e50 and e50i - with/without cam!!!

so, anyways, you got a point, and convergence, though "handy", will never meet the high standards of standalone devices (but how many people do their tax returns on their phone's or pda's editor?)...how many real audiophile ipod owners are there (not to mention taste in music that really calls for a 20000 track portable capacity hehehe...I can't keep the billboard 100 apart?!!)...

what bugs me though, is that "convergence" kills some choice elsewhere! Say the playstationsxboxes... Idea was to bring superior game handling to a small box that does that, and only that well - at a price way below a pc that would still choke on gta... And bang: now the ps3 makes your breakfast, answers your email and from 30euro 8mb memory sticks we converge to massive harddrives and no inbetween!!! Con-verged... Gimme a ps3 that only plays games! Gimme a laptop without 2 mediacentres and 3 different dvd creators...
As humans we are "converged" enough to deal with different, separate needs and solutions... And when the options get taken away in favour of bulky yet flawed "convergence" we all lose more than we gain...