Inspector Gadget: Looking for a New Gadget

It has been more than 2 years since I last bought a new gadget. In my younger days I was a geek-who-has-to-have-it-all. I was the first among my peers to venture into the realm of "gadgetry". I used to own the latest Sony Ericsson(K700i, Z1010 and Nokia(7650, 6630 and finally settled down with my first Windows Mobile device in O2 XDA II Mini (HTC Magician). It all ended the day I got married, and the day my kid was born.

Now I’m back to gadget-hunting as nowadays WiFi hotspots are everywhere, and 3G charges are quite affordable so my O2 Mini no longer fits the ‘IN’ picture. My perfect device has to fit in my palms and pockets, have at least 802.11b/g wi-fi connectivity, 3G for some future-proofing, acceptable screen size with touchscreen input, and most importantly plenty of third party software for me to turn the device into whatever I want it to be. It has to work primarily as my home desktop companion and must not look like a brick. It also has to be reasonably priced and has to last at least for a few years.

Being a Linux-guy I always dreamed of a perfect Linux phone. There are many initiatives around, but not one really stands out above the other. 2 of them that I’m looking forward to are the Ubuntu Embedded project and of course, OpenMoko. None of them have a solid product yet and even when they do it will take them a while to catch up with the big guns (Windows Mobile, Palm). Motorola seems to be the only ‘significant’ phone company (the others being Nokia and Sony Ericsson, the rest do not matter :) that has Linux-based phones in their roadmap. The closest to what I want would be the Motorola ROKR E6 which ships with Monta Vista Linux, but pity it doesn’t even have WiFi.

Another alternative would be a Symbian device, most probably from Nokia or Sony Ericsson. On the plus side, there are plenty of 3rd party applications for the Symbian platform rivaled only by Windows Mobile and Palm. Symbian's touchscreen input is called UIQ and so far has only been deployed on a few high end phones, most notably Sony Ericsson and Motorola models. Motorola has since jumped ship to support Linux. To date none of the UIQ devices look as good as a HTC-based Windows Mobile device. They are typically on the bulky side with the exception of maybe the Motorola RIZR Z8. I wonder if things would be any different if Nokia comes out with a UIQ device. Nokia's designs have always been top of the class especially their N-series phones. But in terms of touch screen interface, UIQ still got some work to do to catch up with its Windows Mobile competition.

Then there’s the iPhone. I, for the life of me can never understand the zealotry behind Apple addicts. Yes, they are pretty, have superb designs and all, but Apple products are always locked to Apple. Cross-platform flexibility, if any, is expected to be very limited if the software model of Apple's Mac PCs and iPods are to be any indication. Of course this subject is always a hot discussion between the pro-Apple camp and the skeptics but I remain very skeptical about iPhone. If you are interested in reading more about this from a pro-Apple POV, you can always go to here and here. There are also the controversies behind the iPhone, most notably the dispute over the 'iPhone' trademark with Cisco and most recently by LG who claimed that Apple stole their ideas for LG Prada phone. Besides the LG Prada, iPhone will also face competition from the upcoming OpenMoko Neo1973 which have the advantage of open source behind it that could potentially attract more developers, and most recently HTC Touch which have the advantage of well established Windows Mobile platform. 4 devices similar in concept yet very different in their design philosophies, I just can't wait to see how it will turn out in this market segment. However at this point of writing, none of these 4 "touch-based" devices support 3G yet.

Unfortunately, as much as I try to avoid anything branded 'Microsoft', for now my choice of a mobile gadget will have to be a Windows Mobile device. I would have gone to Palm but Palm of late is heading towards the way-of-the-dodo. With tons of software supporting the platform despite its closed source nature, Windows Mobile without doubt is the man to beat in this segment. The platform has been well established and the designs of Windows Mobile devices are always rich with features. They also often look sexy and cool especially the ones made by Taiwanese HTC. Given enough time and resources, the table may turn in favor of the competitions but it will take at least a few years for that to happen and when that happens, maybe it will be time when I start my next gadget-hunting.

So which exactly is my gadget of choice? That will be in another blog entry. :)