How Smart is Your Phone?

Being retired I do not have one, do not want one and see no use for a smart phone'.

It does not matter how smart the phone is when it is owned by a complete moron(idiot). Granted they may own a smart phone that costs the same as a small car, but that just proves that they are idiots.

Agreed! I have been reading about the bills some have been receiving due to the large data transfers - love it!

Most annoying feature of my cell phone - it has a tendency to ring.

I use my cell phone to talk to other people, live, and when "I" choose.

I use all my various computers for everything else.

Which reminds me...

I got "criticized" by my boss yesterday for not responding to his phone call over last weekend. The reason I didn't respond is that my cell phone does not connect when I'm inside the house (not to mention that I don't get paid for weekend work). Because of this I usually don't even turn my phone on at home.

But...

Don't tell my boss that. He likes to think I'm always available.

Hooker

I do use my smart phone for data related activities several times a day. In my case, it is for corporate e-mail and personal e-mail. I use this feature (application, really) and text messaging more often than I use it to make phone calls.

Having the ability to send and receive data does not adversely affect the robustness as implied in the question. It enhances it actually. When you have a more advanced chip set (better processor) on the device, you are able to do more. Voice doesn't suffer. There are even certain things that can be added, such as voice commands, that can be added to the device to make the user experience better. Voice command, for example, has come a long way from the original voice recognition, which meant you had to "train" the phone to recognize you voice saying certain commands, to speech recognition, where any one using the device can say the command. This is just one example.

A smart phone has three basic capabilities: make and receive voice calls, send and receive data (including GPS), and run applications on the hand set. The chip sets on the market today all do the first two pretty well, so you are not going to have a poor experience either way -- based on the chip set. Design of the phone (antenna placement for example) and quality of the supporting network (technology used, coverage, etc.) will have a greater impact on the operation of the handset. The third capability, run applications, is dependent on the processor and the memory on board.

With the advent of the new open operating systems, such as Android, you can expect to see more applications available that will provide the features that you want. The basic capability of sending/receiving data enables other "features."

The smart phones just expand what the laptop and internet started - constant availability.

I often watch people chatting on the phone in public and wonder what in the world they have to say that is so important - probably 90% is gossip.

I never have felt the requirement to answer a phone just because it rings if I didn't feel like it - they will call back if it is important.

I saw an ad for one of these "smart" phone where at the end of a long list of functions they breathlessly informed me that it would also allow one to one personal voice communication!! Imagine that, a phone that can handle 1 to 1 voice communication, what will they think of next?