What's Happened In Mobile Over the Past 10 Years 149
andylim writes "recombu.com has an article examining what's happened in mobile over the past ten years, including BlackBerry launching its first smart phone in 2002, Motorola launching the Razr in 2004 and Apple launching the iPhone in 2007. As a commenter points out, the first camera phone (Sharp J-SH04), which was released in 2000, featured a 110,000-pixel (0.11MP) CMOS image sensor, and a 256-colour (8 bit) display."
In other news... (Score:4, Insightful)
Smartphones and Flip Format (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, mobile phone hardware designer types:
The flip format is by far the superior design for a phone, as it allows the phone to halve it's length when not in use and simultaneously protects the screen and user controls.
As much as I'd like to buy a cool phone like an iPhone or Blackberry, the "brick" format makes it a non-starter.
Until then, I'm sticking with my RAZR V9.
(Yes, the Blackberry Pearl is a flip - my wife has one - and that's not a bad phone at all. I *might* just jump at the next gen version of that)
The other big selling point for me is battery life. Notwithstanding the decent media features on my V9, I never use it as a music player because that chews pretty heavily into the battery, and a phone's primary purpose is communications first. Maybe make a phone that has two batteries, and separates the "phone" functions from the "media" functions...
DG
Fuck the RAZR (Score:0, Insightful)
Everyone and their mother had to have one of those, and it wasn't even that good.
Re:Smartphones and Flip Format (Score:5, Insightful)
hey designers the flip phone is so last century. The brick format is far superior, allowing larger screen size, larger batteries, and larger buttons. not to mention the abaility to push a button to accept a call, not to have to use both hands too open the damned thing.
flip phone suffer from breakage, and weak points in their overall designs(hinges can break) As much as I like retro old school toys please stop making them.
Not everyone likes the same things. I have owned several of each style and i always seem to fall back to brick phones.
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Nokia N9000. (Score:5, Insightful)
They missed the most important event of the year: launch of Nokia N900.
Re:I prefer slider phones (Score:3, Insightful)
sliders are 30% thicker, and you complexty in the form of the slide mechaism while stronger than flips is still a weak point.
there is a reason why it is called a brick.
Re:Smartphones and Flip Format (Score:4, Insightful)
Not everyone likes the same things.
Which is why they should stop making flip phones?
Re:The inevitable Slashdot response... (Score:5, Insightful)
On my part, I used to be of the "All I want is a phone that makes calls" kind, but since then dropped that attitude.
Years back, a phone could have a web browser, and a camera, but it was very likely that both things were going to be very half assed. So you'd get an expensive phone with bad battery life that'd be a pain to do web browsing on, and which would make really horrible photos. Also they were quite closed, and often the only option you had is to use the included crappy software or nothing at all.
These days though, phones are shifting towards being a mini computer that just happens to make calls, such as the N900 for instance. And that is cool, and I'm looking forward to getting one. The ability of being whatever I want to do with it, including using skype is a huge advantage, and couldn't be had at any price just a few years back.
The cool thing about phone cameras... (Score:5, Insightful)
...is not quality, but immediacy.
I don't always have my camera on me, but I ALWAYS have my phone. The ability to grab a quick snapshot or video clip when something unexpected happens is priceless.
And the further ability to get that shot out on the network, before it can be censored... I've never had to rely on that, but it has done great things for other people.
And while it will never compete with a SLR bodied, pro camera, I've been pleasantly surprised by just how good a RAZR V9 can be. "Cell phone quality" need not mean "horrific".
And it works through the daysight on a TLAV 1m turret. That has proven useful.
DG
Re:Nokia N9000. (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting isn't it. I have been a fone geek since my my first in the trunk 3 watt analog radio shack branded Car phone. I have had at least one of every important cell phone as technology advanced. I never (before the N900) had one that would truly free me from a laptop.
The N900 IS the most advanced (mobile computer that also has cell and viop phone functions) of the decade.
I really do not understand why I am not seeing more about it.
The reviews I do see are done by iPhone fanbois that can't get past the capacitive screen multi-touch which is not all that great for everything.
I have chatted with many N900 users that after a month or so, are still finding new things.
And, the N900 has one thing you can't find any where else. Real freedom. /rant off
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)
Here in Australia, I have relatives on a sheep station half a days drive away from the nearest town and they can get a stable HSPA data connection through Telstra NextG (with an external antenna) and if they stand in the right place, they can even get a call out with a NextG handset.
If Telstra can get service to somewhere with so little population density, there is NO excuse for the poor state of cellular service in the US.
Re:The inevitable Slashdot response... (Score:4, Insightful)
I've never quite got my head around a tech site like Slashdot, where the demographic is almost certainly interested in new technology having such a negative response to technological advances in what our phones can do. You rarely [never?] hear this with other technology on this site:
The moderation system is largely responsible for this sort of noise. Lots of people raise popular-beat-to-death issues or post contrarian views just to get that +5 Insightful next to their name.
I know this because I'm guilty of it.
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)
The cross-country roaming charges are going to disappear though. There is absolutely no technical reason for them to be there, it suddenly doesn't cost 10 times more to transfer data just because you hit a country border, and it doesn't cost anything to switch providers either, they only need to keep track of actual usage. The roaming charges are there because it's a huge cash-cow for the telcos, and there will soon be EU-wide legislation to remove them, or reduce them to their actual cost.
That said, some companies have already started to remove their roaming charges voluntarily, on a smaller scale, because they, SURPRISE!, found out that you can attract all the roaming customers if you do.