The Case For Separation

I have a confession to make: I don't particularly like Pocket PC phones. I find them unwieldy as phones, and unremarkable as anything else. They come in a variety of uncompelling types, almost all of which manage to be basically the same, the equivalent of lime gelatin for the technology market.

Yeah, I know, that's not much of a confession. It's no secret that I'm a pretty fanatical handheld user, and I've expressed dismay about the apathetic state of the industry on many an occasion.

What might surprise more people is that I'm also an avid Windows Mobile Smartphone user. I own both a Qtek 8500 and an older HTC Typhoon, both of which see regular use. The Samsung BlackJack is my favorite keyboarded device, and I drool uncontrollably over the forthcoming HTC Erato, also known as the S420.

A Converged Two Device User? Heresy!

To be honest I see no contradiction in these things. I've used a lot of hardware over the last few years, and I've seen arguments about even more. I've seen or read about almost every mobile device available in this hemisphere. And you know what I've found? I prefer a device that is great at what it does rather than trying to be adequate at everything.

A couple years ago, before the original Treo 700w came out and bridged some of this gap, one of the most common laments of Pocket PC phone users was that they didn't have a device with the form-factor of a Treo, because it was such a useful design as a phone. The most common wish on the Treo users side, though, was that they would have a device with a large, full screen, like many Pocket PC phones have.

This is a perfect example of the grass being greener on the other side of the hill. While I don't doubt that some of these people are now perfectly happy with a Windows Treo or some other device, I suspect most of them are finding that their desires aren't really satisfied by what's available.

I'll Take What I Can Get

It's been four years since the original Treo debuted, and there's one conclusion that I'm finding more and more irrefutable -- there's no device which does everything perfectly. That's of course a disappointment to most of us, since the lure of the "perfect device" echoes in our minds like a siren song. But the number of people who can actually find that perfect thing are few and far between. For my money, I've settled on the next best thing.

I don't try to read books on my Qtek any more than I make phone calls on my Axim -- the two units are wildly different, with individual strengths and weaknesses, which is why I like them so much. The areas where one is weak is exactly where the other is strong.

To me, carrying the right thing at the right time is much more appealing than trying to carry everything, all the time. While there's an inherent appeal to the victory over the machine of stretching something to do more than it was meant to, be that turning my Axim into a phone with Skype, or shaping a smartphone into a note-taking platform, it's never as easy as you want it to be.

Convergence is supposed to serve, and it's hard to be well served by your devices when you're fighting to make them something that they never were meant to be.

Other Editorials by Adama Brown

• The Future Is Coming To Get You
• If You Show Them, They Will Come
• Murder Most Foul