Why I won’t be buying a smartphone

The human desire for shiny new things blinds us to their faults and to their ultimate uselessness. I’d find it easier to do without the internet/my mobile phone than without my washing machine.

just a point of correction to Christopher’s post regarding WiMAX. WiMAX won’t necessarily reduce the cost of mobile internet. I think he believes WiMAX is an evolution of WiFi hence will be free, to an extent it is an evolution of WiFi but it won’t work on unlicensed spectrum so whoever offers it will have to recoup the cost of spectrum and that’s likely to be no cheaper than the spectrum used by today’s network operators offering mobile internet, so it is not likely to be any cheaper to the end user unless new business models are adopted by the operators.

I don’t need one.

It’s hard to argue with Christopher’s points, but does he use sat nav? Many people do and it can make far more sense to buy a smart phone and run sat nav on it than use two separate devices. Sure, a dedicated sat nav will probably have a bigger screen and more advanced features, but sat nav on a phone will do all most people need, with a number of advantages, e.g. just a single, compact device to carry; always have your sat nav with you (plan walking routes, find out how far it is to somewhere, etc). I use TomTom on my phone but there are plenty of alternatives, arguably superior; I plan to switch to Sygic which is multi-platform.

I tried the touchscreen phones but with R.S.I. Mmy hands ended up painful again. So stick to my querty keyboard. Only one mobile had a stick to use, which still agitated my strained wrists.

Hi Derek, thanks for your comment. You’re definitely right, it does cost to buy spectrum. But WiMax’s bandwidth would theoretically allow operators to introduce and converge a number oif bandwidth-intensive services – voip/iptv/online mobile gaming etc – sparking fresh competition in the broadband space, and ultimately driving down costs for consumers. However, there was supposed to be a hint of irony in my comment as WiMax probably wont make it to the UK any time soon!

Thanks for everyone else’s comments. I suppose this would be a bad time to say that I do actually own a HTC Desire smartphone 😉

I agree with Chris on this one. Smart Phones will be the future but the current technology and cost of mobile Internet access leaves me cold.

Perhaps the new Samsung Galaxy Tab may make the leap forward needed with the technology but doesn’t address battery life or the cost of Internet access. (It is also hugely overpriced.)

When they are able to take photographs as well as a Panasonic TZ10, provide SatNav as good as a Garmin, provide eBook reader functions like the Amazon Kindle, make telephone and Skype calls like my house phone, sound as good as my iRiver Clix with a battery life of several days normal use, only then I will think of buying one.

Many smart phones are technical marvels, but I just want a phone to make the occasional call and for my family to be able to contact me, if they need to in an emergency. As for the major ‘apps’ like satnav I prefer mapnav!

I’ll buy a Smartphone when I can be sure that it will replace adequately my vintage Psion
mx5 Pro, which does *what* I want it to do, in the *way* that I want it to do. Diary, spreadsheet, calculator, contacts / data, spelling, voice recorder, sketch, touch screen – and all programmable to act in the way that * I * want. And, they’ve not been available since 2002! So when I can get a Smartphone that *at least* meets this ancient spec, I’ll buy it! (And I’ve done at lot of searching and speccing)