Google critics warned around the time Chrome (the OS) was introduced that the overlap between Chrome and Android might be more than Google or manufacturing partners bargained for. Now we’re seeing smartphone-based confusion reign supreme, and this time it’s an extension of the “smartbook” term to what might be called the low end – though iPhone and G1 fans might cringe at such a designation.
This week, Android Guys blog asked why a T-Mobile G1 should not be considered among the most full-featured smartbooks available. Editor Sam Herren waved off Apple fans by suggesting that, while iPhone was feature-rich, the difference with G1 was its simultaneity of tasking, perfect for the obsessively-busy.
I’m finding a similar issue with some of the new Samsung smartphones, particularly the Pixon12 with 12-megapixel camera. In this case, the platform is as much a hi-res camera as phone, underscoring the issues Smartbook Blog editor Lisa DiCarlo brought to bear this week.
Being an old-school QWERTY guy myself, I still expect the smartbook to sport a traditional, if shrunken, keyboard. But just as recent surveys of music listeners have discovered that iPod users find MP3 files “higher quality” (ouch!) than WAV or analog LP representations, many handheld device users might think of the Blackberry keyboard as the standard by which all input should be judged.
Be warned: Some in the iPhone and Android communities will be releasing smartphones that may well be called “netbooks” before this semantic war is over. We purists may have to think about smartbooks the way SC Justice Potter Stewart once defined pornography: we’ll know it when we see it. But that may simply be an indicator of our limitations in observing the genre-bending world to come.
Loring
