From: Ad 

Rich wrote:
>    Smartphones do not have anywhere near the I/O perf and capacity of
> PCs even those few years old.

(A) IO perf

Why fit something like :

"The ARM CortexTM-A8 processor is the first applications processor
based on the ARMv7 architecture and is the highest performance, most
power-efficient processor ever developed by ARM. With the ability to scale
in speed from 600MHz to greater than 1GHz, the Cortex-A8 processor can meet
the requirements for power-optimized mobile devices needing operation in
less than 300mW; and performance-optimized consumer applications requiring
2000 Dhrystone MIPS. "

if you're not going to have the IO required to feed the cpu?

RAM etc is cheap & the distances in a mobile phone are smaller.

(B) Capacity?

Mobile phones & digicams are driving solid state storage not the PC
& it's the PC which is moving towards the mobile phone & not the
other way around on that.

e.g.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/05/02/flash_future_for_notebooks/

""More than half of new notebooks to use Flash drives by Q4
2009," shouts the headline on market watcher iSuppli's latest missive,
before admitting soon after that, actually, it's counting not just
solid-state drives but also regular HDDs with integrated Flash cache and
separate caches like Intel's Turbo Memory module.

Still, it shows that non-volatile storage chips are going play an
increasingly important part in laptop design going forward from the handful
- if that - of machines available today with built-in Flash."

or:

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/03/14/sansdisk_flash_drive_for_laptops/

"SanDisk has begun offering a 32GB solid-state drive to notebook
makers less than a week after it was claimed Apple's rumoured sub-notebook
will only contain Flash storage."

Gosh apparently even a recent Microsoft operating system even supports
solid state storage.


>  Sure I can add a memory card to my phone
> but I could add slow memory to PCs from years ago.

My my a MS person saying solid state = slow? So why are the vista people so
keen to boot from it?


> My PC of several
> years back had a terrabyte of storage.

Well done you. I take it this was in a mobile computer. If not then gosh
many smartphones come with USB2.0 & I can add 1 TB easily using that
should I wish to.


> Phones are nowhere close.

With USB2.0 they are exactly where the PC is.

> RAM
> of a phone, not flash storage, is low and usually in the tens or if
> lucky the hundreds of megabytes not gigabytes.

&? Not every OS needs gigabytes of RAM. I accept that Vista does but
heck not every PC has gigabytes of RAM.

In fact none of mine have over 1 Gb.

> Display size of phones
> is tiny.

Indeed. This is the problem I have been referring to but it is soluble
especially if docked in some fashion.

> Human interface input limited though because perf is not an
> issue you can use a bluetooth PC keyboard with some phones such as mine.
>
>    All in all, a phone makes a crappy PC.

A PC makes a crappy small device. Tablets haven't taken off, nor have
micro/sub laptops.

As the PC has found it's much easier to occupy the low ground & then
grow than to occupy the high ground and then try to scale down.

  I very much like my
> smartphone and it is good at what it does.  It doesn't do what a PC does
> nor is it as good as a PC for many of the things the phone can do like
> email and web access.
>

Shrug. The only thing stopping that is display size. My 3G connection is at
teh moment slightly faster than my broadband though I am about to upgrade
my broadband speed so....


>    I'll believe you believe your nonsense when you get rid of all the
> PCs you and your family have at home and use only your phones.
>

I know which I have with me habitually & which my family members have
with them habitually. My elder son uses his PC periodically but take his
mobile phone off him & there'd be war.

I know a number of people who via bluetooth keyboards use their phones for
all note-taking etc in meetings. Fewer & fewer are bringing laptops
unless they're doing a powerpoint style presentation.


It's down to display size. Once they have that figured out then many PC'es
will be replaced with smartphones.

Adam

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