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It's bad enough that smartphones sometimes need rebooting, but add to that the wait before a phone call can be made, and it becomes clear there's a thorny issue manufacturers need to address
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It's bad enough that smartphones are so much like PCs they sometimes need to be rebooted, but add to that the time that must pass before a phone call can be made and it quickly becomes apparent that there's one issue smartphone makers need to address.
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Talkback
David, I hope you'll look beyond Microsoft's co-opting of the word "smartphone" as a brand and try Nokia S60 smartphones, such as the Nokia N95 or N76 (nseries.com). Nokia actually calls them Multimedia Computers -- MCs -- because, as you noticed, they really are computers. And yes, that unfortunately comes with some of the headaches we all know from PCs and Macintoshes.
You could always go back to a basic phone that just makes calls, sends messages, has a phonebook, and maybe a game or two. Nokia sells a ton of them, and they're nice. They even have cameras and music players.
But I'm betting you want full Web, email, IM, podcasting, maps, office apps, and installable apps of any kind you can dream of. That richness & complexity doesn't come quite free. There's a real multitasking OS in there -- in S60's case, Symbian.
I work on browsing at Nokia, but this post is my personal opinion, not an official Nokia statement. In my experience Nokia is always working on reliability first, and we're pretty darn good. And on the rare occasion that my phone does freeze up, I'm back in action in under a half minute. That will get faster as hardware keeps following Moore's Law, doubling in speed every couple of years. But it also will happen less and less often as everything continues to mature.
S60 is far and away the leading smartphone in the world -- over 50% market share globally last time I checked. And finally coming on strong in the US.
See Tim Mather's comment on ZDNet, http://resources.zdnet.co.uk/articles/comment/0,1000002985,39289506,00.htm. He's talking about security, and Linux -- but S60 is also open to new apps and innovation (which might be why it's been slow to take off in the US? :)
I have got two nokia s60 phones and a htc microsoft mobile. The nokia can reboot from a crash on average 25 sec my htc can take anywhere fom 60 secs to 2 or 3 mins!
Another rant on smart phones, touch screens. I cant see my htc outside to make calls, my n95 is now my main phone as i can see it outside and it does everything the htc can do.
/rant
erm... I remember having to reboot (switch off) my M600i, but not when; it really was that long time ago.
There were some early problems with P990i sonyericsson based on roughly the same software but they were sorted within 6months of launch, just goes to show nothing replaces a well designed bit of software...
The M600i is a great phone with a great formfactor and of course Blackberry ready. We're trialling E-series Nokia devices at work and they are pretty good to, with more software support (Avaya Fixed Mobile Convergance - One-X Mobile, seamlessly transfer calls between Wifi coverage and Mobile calls).
Blackberry's haven't crashed on me either despite heavy use...
I guess the more software you put on, the more likely you'll have problems though.