01 August 2008

What is your 'ultimate device' like?

It is a well known 'fact' in the blogosphere that the mobile industry goes through a 2-year cycle with new, fresh innovations every second year. Last year we had the legendary Nokia N95, the lovable Nokia E90, the HTC Touch Pro and love-it-or-hate-it-but-can't-ignore-it iPhone, amongst other less hyped but equally successful phones.

It was a pretty exciting year for freaks of all types. Even the so called 'dummy' s40 portfolio matured with the release of 5th edition of the OS and affordable, stylish, easy to use phones targeted at the common normobs such as the 6300 and 3500c.

But this year has proved to be disappointment so far?! It is mid 2008 and we are still stuck on the very inconvenient (for bigger screens, like 2.6 or 2.8 inches) resolution of QVGA. It is 2008 and we are still stuck on batteries that hardly last us a whole day of heavy use. It is 2008 and we still don't have a virtual shop to buy our applications and games (except N-Gage of course, but not every device supports it).

It is 2008 and we still don't have a QWERTY/Numeric dual keypad Nseries phone. It is 2008 and we still don't have analog TV tuners. It is 2008 and ... well, you get the point, don't you? While 2009 looks promising with new high res screens and the revival of the megapixel race, we are yet to see that one 'killer' innovation that has everything that everyone so desperately wants! Tube? Please - a high end iPhone killer, that's all (IMO, of course). The C902? Dummy phone! The i850? Yeah, impressive no doubt, but still QVGA on a 2.8 inch screen! What else is there? Nothing too great, IMO.

Whether we need the 'one phone to rule them all' is a matter of opinion and debate - if we do get such a phone, the drive for innovation dies, we reach a flat peak and we can only go down from there. And if we don't get such a phone, well we will never be satisfied!

So well, I think it is time for us to converge and discuss what the device must flaunt! Here is the space people, do post what your ultimate device must have!