[Polpolion]

I don't see why you've been taking any of these posts in this thread so personally.

You seem really mad about this.
Are you often told by people that you are addicted to social media? Is that why you snap at this?

Stop making personal attacks and he'll stop taking them personally.

[Lorric]

It's not a personal attack.

I don't see why you've been taking any of these posts in this thread so personally.

He says he doesn't understand why he is getting mad.

You seem really mad about this.
Are you often told by people that you are addicted to social media? Is that why you snap at this?

He wants to understand.

[Scotty]

Well it sure as hell looks like personal attacks to me.  This discussion about who is and is not mad is over.

[Spoon]

This is dumb.
Asking someone why is he is snapping/getting mad is a personal attack now? I see Luis (among others) having a really ****ty attitude about what other people think about smart phones and I simply don't get it. How about letting everyone have their own opinion about these sort of things without getting your panties in a bunch over it?

I'm out, I see GD is still as ****ty as it has ever been before. Too much reading into things that aren't being said, so you can get angry over it and too much anger over opinions in general.

[Kolgena]

This thread has been a fascinating and educational read on why Microsoft sucks.

[swashmebuckle]

If this turns into an all out tech war, I'm afraid the smartphone people have far larger and more numerous projectiles at this point, so uh...

Posted from my iPhone 4G

[Flipside]

I don't think it's so much a technical dick-waving contest as a reminder that different people use technology in different ways.

For example, I have a camera on my phone, occasionally I take photographs with it, but mostly I use my digital camera because it is better suited to the kind of photography I do, for example, those into astro-photography might find using the pad difficult for the actual photography (though they may find use in a Star-chart app). The same for music, it has to be remembered that most music apps on smartphones etc are of extremely limited use when it comes to music production, it's better to have a suite of programs running on a more powerful system if you are heavily into it.

That doesn't mean the phone or its apps are bad things, they are still useful tools, but it's just they don't match the way I use technology. Maybe if I myself was into Astro-photography then, as I said earlier, something like a Star-chart app would be useful, but I'm not, so it isn't, that's all it is.

[Luis Dias]

Well I guess that when Lorric manages to become sociably more reasonable than I've been I guess I owe an apology.

[Lorric]

Well I guess that when Lorric manages to become sociably more reasonable than I've been I guess I owe an apology.

Please don't be doing that with the sideswipe at me. You yourself once said I am very nice.

But hopefully this means this issue is resolved now.

[Lorric]

sideswipe at me.

Retracted. Received pm from Luis, it was not meant as a sideswipe.

[karajorma]

Seriously, there are good arguments, and there's accusing people of being Luddites....

People here aren't saying they think the technology is worthless or evil or dangerous, simply that they feel they would have no use for it when attached to a phone. Whether you agree with that concept or not, it doesn't make them afraid or ignorant of that technology.

The thing is though that I'm seeing a lot of people on this thread saying that they'd have no use for a smartphone when they have no experience of owning a smartphone. There is a huge difference between the argument that the convenience of owning a smartphone isn't worth the money and the argument that a smartphone wouldn't be at all convenient. We've been hearing an awful lot of the latter argument from people who then make statements which contradict it.

[Mikes]

Seriously, there are good arguments, and there's accusing people of being Luddites....

People here aren't saying they think the technology is worthless or evil or dangerous, simply that they feel they would have no use for it when attached to a phone. Whether you agree with that concept or not, it doesn't make them afraid or ignorant of that technology.

The thing is though that I'm seeing a lot of people on this thread saying that they'd have no use for a smartphone when they have no experience of owning a smartphone. There is a huge difference between the argument that the convenience of owning a smartphone isn't worth the money and the argument that a smartphone wouldn't be at all convenient. We've been hearing an awful lot of the latter argument from people who then make statements which contradict it.

I do use a Android phones for 4 years but don't really have a use for them.

Same for Android tablets. Bought into the hype and was all excited about it, but the longer I used, the more the realization sunk in that it really is the worst device to be doing what needs to be doing or what I want to be doing at any given time. There is always a device that performs better for pretty much everything to the point where you start to question why you do task X with the stupid smartphone this time ...

So, Yes there is an "App for everything" ... the problem is .... literally all of these Apps are utter garbage/limited/stunted/crippled/crap when compared to the real solutions that already exist on other systems.

So that's what a smartphone is for me: Some kind of jack of all trades device that could "in theory" do almost everything, but in practice, gets used for pretty much nothing now because after the newness/coolness wears off the only thing that remains  is the certainty that for pretty much any task (or entertainment) there is a device/setup that is worlds better at that task than a smartphone is.

So there you have it: I've been owning and using smartphones for 4 years and had an android tablet for over 1 year... but the only thing I got from it is the realization of how useless or at least "below par" those devices really are.

(Now own a (larger) tablet/laptop hybrid with a full OS which is actually useful for getting stuff done.)

Bottomline: After 4 years of smartphone use there are really only 2-3 tasks where the smartphone is my "preferred device": Phone calls, navigation and Alarm clock while travelling. That's it.
And yes, sometimes while on the move I use it to quickly look stuff up on the internet ... but  anytime I have to use it for that, I do resent it because of how awkward even that is (in comparison) on such a device.

... and that's not for a lack of trying other stuff.... I tried to do pretty much everything with it as I started... it's just that after being so excited of how cool it is to do "X" on a smartphone, I got more and more annoyed, then disgusted, ...  as I started to realize how crappy the phone really is for pretty much anything you do and that the only reason I would do stuff on the new phone is well ... because it was "new" and "cool". ... but as you can guess ... that phase didn't last too long.

[Dragon]

No real use? Let's see... I find my smartphone very useful for browsing the net in places where there's no space for laptop. You can also stand while browsing, which is hard to do with a laptop and an extremely convenient feature. Also, if you own a car mount, you can use it as GPS. This can be very useful if you travel by car a lot (or just have zero sense of direction, like my mom ) or even just don't like carrying map around. I own one of the smallest smartphones on the market (and probably the smallest you can get with a physical keyboard), so it's infinitely more compact than a paper map could ever hope to be. Aside from that, I often use it as a flashlight. The camera isn't really great, but it works well enough, and if you need to take a quick snapshot of something, it's awesome. Also, thanks to the physical QWERTY keyboard, it's also convenient as a notepad for writing down stuff without the need for neither a pen, a piece of paper or a hard surface to write on. Comes with a calendar and a reminder system, too. And there's probably an app that would allow it to work as a graphic calculator, hopefully saving me quite a bit of money. Finally, it works as an alarm clock. And a music player, which is great on long bus trips. Oh, and before I forget. It can be used as a regular phone and does this job quite well.

Yes, there are dedicated devices for all this, and they do the job better in most cases, but my smartphone fits it all into a single device I can carry in my trouser pocket (or even a waistcoat pocket. That thing really is tiny). Perhaps other, larger phones are less convenient, but the case still stands unless you're not wearing a jacket. It replaces a lot of stuff that would otherwise I'd have to carry in my briefcase/jacket pockets. While it's no substitute for a proper laptop, there are places where I wouldn't be able to get a laptop out of my briefcase, nevermind open it.

I can agree about a tablet, though. The entire reason why smartphone is so great is that it can be really dinky. In my case, it's only slightly wider and about 1.5 as thick as a regular phone. Others are larger, but still small. Tablet is as big as a netbook (so no pocket carry unless you're wearing cammies, and even than, it's a bad idea), while not really being able to do anything a good smartphone or a laptop can.

[Mikes]

Dragon, I ll agree that a smartphone is useful in situations where any other device is completely impractical....   I guess for me such situations are simply too rare.

 ... I can't really think of all but a very few tasks  I would do on the smartphone when I do have a dedicated device available.

As said above, phonecalls, navigation and alarm clock ... maybe MP3 player if you really don't care about music quality ...  but that's about it.

Internet use, also as said above, is just awkward on a phone (imho) the moment you try to get anything done that goes beyond looking up small/tiny amounts of information.
Yeah I'll use the phone if I really don't have access to anything else and it really really can't wait ... but it's awkward/often impractical even then.

More to the point, the moment you try to do anything a little bit complicated with it, like getting work done or playing a game ... the whole user experience just falls apart in comparison to any dedicated solutions.
And tablets are just as bad as phones in that regard imho. - to the point where you'd rather not do stuff at all, but wait for when you do have one of those dedicated devices available again.

[Polpolion]

My issue with using smartphones as mp3 players is that you need to compete for stoarge space with everything else on the device. 32gb smartphones are expensive as it is, and I don't want to use my precious cellular data streaming music when I already have a good dedicated mp3 player.

[Wobble73]

My issue with using smartphones as mp3 players is that you need to compete for stoarge space with everything else on the device. 32gb smartphones are expensive as it is, and I don't want to use my precious cellular data streaming music when I already have a good dedicated mp3 player.

Which is where smartphones that take MicroSD cards is helpful 

[Polpolion]

My mp3 player also takes a microsd card, which is full. I can't fit all of my music on my mp3 player as it is. 

[Klaustrophobia]

ipod classic.  120 gb hard drive.  this thing better not ever break, because i don't ever want to have to buy a more expensive flash one that has a tiny fraction of the storage.

[karajorma]

... I can't really think of all but a very few tasks  I would do on the smartphone when I do have a dedicated device available.

I don't think anyone here is saying that a smartphone is better than a dedicated device. The point in having a smartphone is for the second half of your sentence. Unless you want to cart around all those dedicated devices, most of us feel that it's better to have a jack of all trades than to have nothing at all. What I find amusing is the instance by some that they'd rather have nothing, even though we're on a forum populated mainly by techies.

Let me ask you a simple question though. If someone stole your phone tomorrow, would you go out and buy another smartphone or a dumb phone (Assuming money wasn't an issue)?


It's also worth bearing in mind that different smartphones give you a completely different experience. I spent about 30 minutes using a top of the line Samsung to type and I was about ready to smash the thing even though I'd then have to pay for it. My Blackberry on the other hand gives me a lovely typing experience and unless I actually tell people I'm using it, I doubt many people can tell whether I'm using it or my PC when I post on here.

Despite what various fanboys will tell you, there is no best smartphone or smartphone OS. Everybody has different needs and desires. I remember years before I bought my first mobile phone saying that I'd love to have a BlackBerry cause I wanted a device that could do all the things it could do with the exception of making phone calls and sending text messages. Fast forward 5 years and those two features are still used much less than anything else.

[Scotty]

Let me ask you a simple question though. If someone stole your phone tomorrow, would you go out and buy another smartphone or a dumb phone (Assuming money wasn't an issue)?

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me this is most of the issue.  Smart phones are monumentally expensive compared to dumb phones.  I got my most recent phone earlier this year for a grand total of $36.99 including the upgrade fee of $36.  You just simply cannot get a smart phone for that cheap.