My Dream Smartphone

[Guest ed0]

Smart-phones just keep getting better and better, but sometimes manufacturers take away things that you'd like to have or add things you don't want. This post is hopefully being read by the right people in the various mobile-phone companies, so that they develop the phones we want. Following is my own dream-list of features, with explanations. Please add comment, and your own feature lists, and feel free to debate my ones. HTC has been possibly the most innovative in terms of building the most feature-bound mobiles over the past few years. Saying that, Palm, Nokia, and Motorola have got a fair amount of good stuff simmering in the background.

On to the features, my dream smart/pda-phone would have:

* 640x480 display (or any improvement on 320x240)

- this is a little impractical, but it is possible in a fairly small form-factor, if you slide the keyboard away, and make the display practically the size of the phone with a few buttons around the edges. Similar style phones - HTC Wizard, HTC Prophet, HTC TyTn, Apple iPhone, LG Prada, Motorola A1200 (Ming)

- note that Palm T3,TX PDAs have 480x320 display, and the Nokia N800 tablet pda has 800x480 display, Nokia 9300i communicator has 640x200 display

- note that the tiny Nokia 6233 standard mobile phone has a 2 inch diagonal (51mm) display capable of 320x240

- Touch-screen "obviously" - surely I needn't even mention this - and a decent stylus (HTC Prophet or Treo 650 are good in this department)

* TV or Monitor Out

- able to play games, use applications, view movies, view photo slideshow on large display (e.g. a TV)

- various PDAs and mobiles have this capability already (e.g. Samsung D600/D700, GamePark GP2X, Nokia N93, older Compact-Flash to VGA cards + PDA)

* Full range of connectivity - Wifi (b/g/e/i), Bluetooth (A2DP), USB Host port, Infrared, 3G/Edge/Quad-band, Mini-USB, Audio socket

- Wifi (802.11b/g/e/i/other) - including as many encryption combinations as possible (WEP/WPA/WPA2)

- Wifi software to allow multiple profiles (e.g. not reliant on DHCP)

- Ideally the longer range Bluetooth v2 with A2DP profile (stereo headset)

- USB host port - so I can attach usb peripherals such as card reader, keyboard, mouse, joystick, hard drive, ethernet adaptor

- Infrared is handy when swapping contact info between phones, but could be great as TV/DVD/Hifi Remote Control

- 3G/Edge/Quad-band - want to be able to use the phone anywhere, and with as fast a data connection as possible (mobile internet)

- Mini-USB port is very useful for connecting to computer, use it for synchronising and charging - good to use smartphone as USB hard-drive

- Audio socket - 2.5mm wired headphone/microphone socket, ideally a 3.5mm stereo jack adaptor in the box - do not like these combined usage ports

* Respectable camera (2megapixel minimum)

- Nokia and Sony produce pretty decent camera phones

- Ideally 3megapixel or higher, as long as the quality of the image can be maintained (i.e. pictures don't get ruined by noise)

- Responsive, great results

- LED Flash appreciated, for taking pics in twilight/darkness

- Movie mode of at least 320x240 and ideally 640x480 30fps

* Linux operating system, or some degree of choice

- I like to have choice when it comes to mobile phone operating system software

- If possible, the same mobile with more than one O/S to choose from (Windows and Linux and Symbian)

- Ideally firmware upgradeable, so you the user can modify the O/S to suit your needs

- Open-source, so that users can modify and change the O/S to suit them

- Note that Apple iPhone is running MacOS, some HTC models have been reverse-engineered to run Linux (no help from HTC),

Trolltech Qtopia Greenphone runs Linux, likewise the Motorola A1200 (Ming) and ROKR E6 run Linux

* SDIO/HC card slot (SD High Capacity with SDIO)

- There is no need for mini-sd or micro-sd. These formats are just a pain.

- If a phone company puts in a micro-sd slot - make it a dual slot, otherwise what's the point

- SD High Capacity is available up to 8Gb

- SDIO allows peripherals such as GPS, Wireless Lan, Bluetooth, Serial Com port, Barcode Reader, and so on

- Preferably hot-swappable slot - most decent mobiles can manage this (Treo 650, HTC Wizard, HTC Prophet, Nokia 6680, etc)

* Decent Processor, Graphics Processor

- Ideally the main processor should be 400MHz or higher (such as HTC TyTn)

- 3D Graphics Acceleration in graphics processor (should be able to handle gaming, similar to Sony PSP)

- Should be able to playback VGA (640x480 pixel) movie clips without stuttering

- Should be able to multi-task reasonably well

- I understand that x86 processors will be coming to smart/pda phones in the near future - Woooo!!!

- Phone shouldn't have any pause when flicking through apps or dialing a number

* Decent amount of Ram / Onboard Flash Memory

- At this juncture, 256Mb Flash and 128Mb Ram would be good

- Ideally 1Gb Flash, 256Mb Ram excellent

- Tempting to go with a proper hard drive inside the phone, but not really needed, wastes battery power

* Decent battery life

- 5 days worth of standby

- 4 hours or more of intensive usage with wifi, ideally double that

- user-removable battery preferred

* Decent web browsing capability

- Flash, javascript, AJAX, Streaming video/audio should all work fine like they do on PC or Mac systems

- Preferably multiple window/tab browsing

* Decent File Manager/ Application Manager / Backup / Software

- Easy to install as many apps/games as I want, and uninstall them again

- Preferably no messy registry

- Backup mechanism to restore phone to previous setups (e.g. restore to empty, restore to point X, etc)

- If the system runs x86, then it should get "real" full-featured apps, not just "phone" apps

* Built-in GPS

- It's nice to have satellite navigation capability without having to carry around a separate GPS BT Receiver

* Well placed buttons

- The phone should be convenient to use, and to use "one-handed"

- Volume slider is generally a good choice of button

- Keyboard lock easy to access

- Jog-dial on side of mobile (e.g. Blackberry) are nice when well implemented

- Cursor and select button - good choice for accessing menus

* Leather or plastic case

- Slip-on case preferred (thin material) to prevent scratches, and allow you to carry in pocket/purse

- Belt-cases are quite good (e.g. HTC Prophet, HTC Wizard) but do bulk-up the mobile, which is a shame

* Not too big

- Today's Treo 650, HTC Prophet are the right size (100mm x 55mm x 17mm) for a smartphone

- The XDA Exec, HTC Universal is too big

In case any of you were wondering, my mobile device selection includes:

HTC Prophet, HTC Wizard, Palm Treo 650, Nokia 6680, SPV C500, Nokia N-Gage,

Sharp Zaurus SL-C860, Gamepark GP2X, Archos PMA400, Sendo X.

[Guest bennish]

I guess this should probably be in windows mobile professional (pda) rather than standard (smartphone) if it's talking about a touchscreen device?

[Guest Monolithix (MVP)]

Hmm its fairly general Bennish.

To the OP, a *lot* of what you've said there applies to almost any high end phone, to the extent of which this should almost be in the Lounge...

Irrelevent points aside (you get the OS the manufacturer decides on), a lot of the points you make that do apply to WM devices are already available. 800x480 res screen will be out soon in the form of the Tosh G900, GPS is becomming more common (Wings/Kaiser), the same goes for CPU and memory as 400MHz chips and 128/256mb RAM are finding their way into new devices now. As i say though, a lot of the other stuff is applicable to any decent handset.

Personally i think the "killer apps" HTC need to address to turn their great handsets into excellent handsets is firstly (and most importantly) get a decent camera on their handsets. Pixel counts are fairly meaningless once you hit 2Mpix and above, but the quality of the lens and sensor is what makes the difference, look at the Autofocus camera on the Ameo, fantastic. Lets see more of it please HTC!. Secondly i think GPS is going to be the next big step in mobile phones and HTC have a headstart here. More widespread inclusion in their mid-high end range of handsets would make their devices just that little bit more appealing.

[Guest ed0]

Points taken, particularly the comments about the appropriateness of posting to this section. It is a fairly general forum post, but it is centered on the more powerful pda-phones rather than the more bog standard variety. Slightly disappointed that there weren't many replies in terms of "liked your feature set" or "some of your features were good but you left out ^this^".

Anyway, just thought I'd add this extra bit which does focus on a device that presses a number of right buttons for me. Unfortunately the device isn't a phone, and it is too big, but needs only a few modifications and it would fit my requirements perfectly...

What is it, you ask? The Nokia N800 Internet Tablet ..... but changed so that (1) it is a mobile phone, (2) souped up a bit in terms of processing power, (3) lose a bit of screen estate but shrink it down to a more pocket-able size (e.g. 640x480).

Would be good if someone at Nokia took on these points, heh. Glad to hear that a Linux Treo is "in the works." Does anyone know the best places to post these sort of requests so that manufacturers can contemplate them?

[Guest ed0]

Found this link:

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2986976174.html

Phone model: FIC Neo1973 (FIC-GTA001)

... which further goes in the direction of my Dream Smartphone.

A 640x480 touchscreen screen, Linux and Windows Mobile capable, can run ethernet over usb.

This version doesn't appear to be wifi enabled, but apparently the next model will.

This model does have bluetooth and gps built-in, but sadly no camera.

Not happy about micro-sd being the format for memory expansion (rather than sd or even mini-sd),

but I'd live with it, if the rest of the phone matched requirements.

From the pictures, this model has a slightly unappealing shape, hopefully they'll work on that.

Edited April 17, 2007 by ed0

[Guest Monolithix (MVP)]

Yep saw this a few weeks ago. Its quite a nice device spec wise, you're right about the looks though :/ Only problem is it being a bit of a jack of all trades makes a master of none (in this revision at least!)

[Guest Webreaper]

Sounds to me like you want the moon on a stick. ;)