The iPhone is a good thing.
In a stagnant and decadent market, it has injected a much needed revival in innovation; something the mobile telecommunications industry desperately needed. The problem is, despite all it’s goodness, it is still lacking so very much.
I have never owned a smart-phone, for a few simple reasons; the high cost has never justified the feature-set, especially when the said feature-sets are so doggedly inconsistent. Windows Mobile handsets have Mobile Office, which I really want, but they don’t have the hard-drive the iPhone sports (not to mention the style, have you seen Windows Mobile handsets?). The iPhone has Wi-Fi, but no 3G. And no tactile keyboard (stupid, stupid, stupid). The Nokia E65 has Wi-Fi and document viewing, but a micro-sized screen. The recently announced Nokia N810 has everything I want, but no goddamn phone!
I’m going to single out the N810 in this article, rather than bash the iPhone (it’s been done).
Nokia make good machines. I’ve always liked their handset build quality and the Symbian Operating System. They pack in good features with an attractive price. Unfortunately they seem doomed to remain hopeless at tackling the high-end smart-phone arena (for the life of me I still don’t know why they don’t release a Windows Mobile handset, Symbian is great and all, but it’s not suitable for the high-end market). The Nokia N810 is the closest I’ve seen to an appealing smart-phone from the Nokia.
The problem is it’s not a smart-phone. It’s an ‘Internet Tablet’, whatever the hell that is. Why can’t they release a model with an antena? The ‘Internet Tablet Phone Edition’? Why can’t they release a phone with Linux, Wi-Fi, 3G and the super web browser they’ve developed (no, I’m not talking about the Communicator)? They can keep the ‘Internet Tablet’ as a separate product line, but give me the smart-phone I want! Doing so would strongly challenge the iPhone, something the mobile handset makers seem to be struggling at. Please, Nokia, please; do the right thing.
