What is a smartphone?

Ok people, it's comment time. Since the first SPV, I've had a fairly certain idea of what I believe smartphones are - for me it's generally down to operating system alone. But the lines are becoming blurred, and I need to know what you think. If you want to know my thoughts on the matter, click on the 'read more' link below to read a short exchange between myself and Arne Hess - Publisher & Editor in Chief of the::unwired


The following follows a difference of opinion of the first Windows powered UMTS smartphone - the SPV M5000 in my opinion, but the ASUS P305 in Arnes.

Arne: The Universal is - by Microsoft's own definition - a Pocket PC Phone Edition (using Windows Mobile for Pocket PC) while the Asus P305 is using Windows Mobile for Smartphone which makes it the first UMTS Windows Mobile Smartphone. ;)

Me: Ahh, I see where you're coming from. Actually, I was wondering myself recently what actually defines a "smartphone". I guess it's been long accepted that the Microsoft OSs, Symbian Series 60, 80 and UIQ, and Palm all would make a phone a "smartphone" (in my way of thinking at least). But what with regular phones becoming better and better, the gap is certainly closing. Things that were once the domain only of smartphones - A fully featured internet browser, QVGA screens, QWERTY thumb-boards - have all been assimilated into the masses of "dumb-phones".

Perhaps it's the ability to run something else other than Java? How would you define it?

Arne: In the GSM world itself it was defined as or at least it was used as: Mobile Phone, Feature Phone Smartphone and you are right, the line between Feature Phone and Smartphone is fading out now. I would follow your suggestion that a Feature Phone might have a full Internet browser today but is running applications in a sand boxed Java environment only while Smartphones are a little bit more "open" and allows to run apps on the native platform (Windows Mobile, Symbian, UIQ).From the Microsoft point of view the Smartphone/Pocket PC Phone Edition definition was the following:Smartphone: Voice centric with data supportPocket PC Phone Edition: Data centric with voice supportToday I would define it as:Smartphone: Keyboard only inputPocket PC Phone Edition: Touch screen input which also supports additional keyboard support (today, with Windows Mobile 5.0)

So come on people, I know it's sunday (at the moment), but let's see some comments!

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