Quote:
Originally Posted by eschwartz
I would argue that a smartphone or tablet has far more similarity to a PC than to an embedded microcontroller (  where did you pull that ridiculous comparison from, if you want to talk about "disingenuous")... or even a single-use embedded system.
Don't you own a Surface tablet? Is that an embedded device, just because it uses a mobile form factor?
What, precisely, is your inscrutable determining factor between "general-purpose OS" and "dedicated, invisible-to-the-user"?
Because it sounds like your definition of "embedded device" refers more to user knowledge than device design; I could easily make the case that a Windows 8 desktop rig is an embedded device according to what you just said. G-d knows, a lot of people wouldn't be able to tell the difference. 
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Define 'Windows 8 desktop rig'. While most users may not be able to tell you what version of 7 they have, I have yet to meet someone who didn't know Windows 8 when they saw it.
Also, 'a smartphone or tablet' is far too broad a term to be using here; no one would argue that a Nexus running Ubuntu Touch was running linux. Nor would anyone claim that a Lumia with Windows Phone 8 was a linux device.