Quote:
Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel
personally, i actually do strongly favour "single use" or at least "few uses" devices ; i can't see combining my cellphone with a liseuse (reading device) because i don't want a huge telephone or a tiny screen for reading, i don't want to combine it with a netbook-type device because i don't want a backlit screen for reading but e-ink is too slow and limited for other web-type activities for the moment, and more importantly i want to read on the lightest and most compact device i can get (even my sony 700 is slightly on the heavy side, i find, for carrying around, so forget cuddling up in bed with a netbook or even worse a notebook !) but i know that for some people it's much more practical or desirable to have a multi-use device, and in fact i'm sure there are plenty of people who wouldn't think a single-purpose device just for reading would be a justifiable purchase (it is for me). i hope that both forms will survive, although i do think we'll start to see more and more somewhat hybrid devices soon.
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Besides their screen size, there is the issue of carrier exclusivity. For instance in the United States AT&T is the only carrier that can offer the iPhone. What makes this particularly annoying is that no carrier offers service nationwide (eg. Neither AT&T no Sprint have coverage in North-Eastern Nevada). Also if the carrier pulls out of your area you lose your current service and have to buy a new phone (as has happened to me
TWICE).
Now I do think integration is inevitable in the long run. The current lines being mainly drawn from limitations in the display technologies... The Pixel Qi technology solves one or two major issues with LCDs, plus color and eventually even video rate response times will make eInk a much more viable multimedia display. Despite their limitation, cell phones should be good enough for many people. In the 5-10" display range I believe it very likely that we will see the concepts of book reader ("liseuse"
) and internet tablet merge. And 9" and larger (yes I overlapped them on purpose) you would have the tabletPC/Convertibles.