The Perfect Cell Phone
(for me, anyways.. I think)
I would like to build my own cell phone. Because what I want of a cell phone is different from what the manufacturer have made or prototyped. When the Handspring Treos came out (and Sprint offered their $10 unlimited data plan), I perked up. The Treo 270/300 has a lot of what I want, but not quite everything. I liked that fact that it was an easily programmable device. I liked the fact that it had color. I liked the fact it had a thumb board. But there were a bunch of little things that I didn’t like.
First, features I would like:
- I’m a nerd. I want to be able to fit at least 80 columns of characters on a screen. Height isn’t as important. I feel a wider display would improve the browsing experience, and any other heavy reading. And of course, it would improve the usability of terminal applications.
- I want a thumbboard. Again that whole terminal application thing. I don’t want to use Graffiti to enter “:wq” nor do I want to use something like T9.
- I want lots of memory and lots of CPU power.
- I want standard expansion slots. SD is probably the only reasonable option. CompactFlash is probably too large physically.
- I want Bluetooth.
- I want a real dialpad. Not some virtual on screen thing. Because I want some tactile feedback when I press a button. So I can dial without necessarily having to look at it.
- I want it to be easily programmable. So there will be lots of interesting little apps out there. If not, so at least I can write something of interest for myself.
- Must be reasonably usable as a phone without a handsfree. Unlike the Danger or the Nokia video game thing.
I imagine to look something like the Nokia Communicator. Except smaller. That thing is a brick. Why is it that big? Can you touch type on that keyboard? Probably not, so what advantages does it really have over a thumb board (at such a cost of size). I’m thinking around the size of the 3390. Dial pad on the outside with a small LCD. Thumb board on the inside with a color lcd.
The P800 is kinda cool. The size isn’t bad. It is programmable. It does have Bluetooth. It is expandable. Hrmm.. no keyboard though, and really expensive.
Maybe some next generations phones will have greater appeal. Though I don’t really see Palm or Handspring adopting a new form factor.
Oh well.
Site News: I’ve actually put something on the About page. And I’ve put up project pages for wwpc and WIMP. I’ve also uploaded Javadocs for XML Lite. The preview button now works on the comments. Line breaks in comments are now preserved. You don’t get a 404 after registering. And probably some other random things fixed up.
April 25th, 2003 at 6:34 am
You crazy, crazy man!
“That thing is a brick. Why is it that big?”
Why is it that big? It’s that big because it has all of that stuff that you’re asking for! And not even all of it. What you’re asking for would be bigger!
Sounds nice. But, I wouldn’t want the thumbboard or the real keys. On the Samsung i330, I like that the keys are virtual and that the Palm is easily programmable. Reason being is that I get more screen real estate by nixing the keys. See, I hardly ever want to type someone’s number. I want big fat keys that have people’s names on them and then I press that button. Of course, the list would be small, but there aren’t that many people that I call regularly anyway and I would still be able to bring up the keypad with a click of a button.
I’m also not fond of a thumbboard because I feel that it is ridiculously small and graffiti is not that hard.
The rest sounds great.
April 25th, 2003 at 7:58 am
You are such a geek!
April 25th, 2003 at 10:06 am
As far as I can tell/imagine, the two main defining factors of the size of the Nokia Communicator are the screen and the keyboard. The screen is 640 pixels wide allowing for the 80 columns of text easily. I don’t need 640 pixels. Something less (with some creative fonts) will do. Or use a higher density LCD. The keyboard, my complaint is that it probably doesn’t offer more than a thumb board yet it is probably twice is big.