Smartphones Now: 10 Things I Hate About Smartphones
- November 3rd, 2006
- Read 5184 times
- 58 Comments
Smartphones Now is a special group of features by CrunchGear writers on the latest smartphones available or soon to be available in the US.
In this installment, we froth at the mouth at the current crop of smartphones.
10. Proprietary Connectors and Software
My wife wanted to sync her Nokia with a PC. We dug around a bit and discovered she needed a special cable. Search for the cable — uh-oh, didn’t come with the phone. OK. No problem. We try to order one — $70! Wha!?
Smartphones are not PCs. They don’t have any tried and true standard connectors. Power ports, sync ports, and headphone jacks come in all shapes and sizes, from mini plugs to stange pin-outs only seen on alien spacecraft. Some devices — SK3, ahem — won’t take a charge over USB. Other phones don’t have USB ports at all and depend on Bluetooth for most devices. Come on, people: USB, mini-Jack, and Bluetooth. Let me plug my device in, sync it, and leave it there to charge. Let me buy off the shelf headsets when your headset breaks. Let me avoid proprietary software and pin setups at all cost. Also, allow me to charge over USB. Let everything charge over. You could even not include a charger, just a cable. Let me figure stuff out. I do not need 50 chargers in a box downstairs.
That said, companies like HTC are moving steadily in this direction, adding MiniUSB to almost all of its products. Companies like Mark/Space are slowly bridging the gap between PC and OS X syncing. It’s a start, but it’s still not enough.
9. Quick Access to Important Functions - Nah
Need to delete all your emails in Windows Mobile 5.0? Sorry. Need to turn up the volume in the T-Mobile Dash while talking and the phone is locked? Sorry. Take it away from your ear, press a few buttons, and then TRY to use the volume buttons. Need set up an email account in Symbian? Call your IT guys, because you’re going to need all sorts of crazy info. Then, no matter what, you won’t know if you’ve succeeded or why you failed.
Some carriers and brands are remedying this by offloading much of the configuration to an external server. Most phones don’t have the smarts or the wherewithal to try multiple ports and servers. However, by sending basic email data to a main server — domain, username, and password — carriers are making it much easier to set up email. Many smartphone OSes avoid the endless menu trek by creating a simple, easy-to-grasp interface. Others, like Windows Mobile 5.0 and, to some extent, Symbian, do not. What are we to do? Suck it up until the next release and buy a Treo.
Oh, and put on a damn mute switch. A physical switch. No menus, no buttons. A switch.
8. No OS X Support
This is related to number 10 but deserves its own point. People like Macs. People like iPods. They want their phones to work with Macs. Microsoft — are you listening? Mark/Space makes a great ActiveSync clone, but should I really have to pay $39.95 to use my phone.
This has long been a bone of contention in the hardware space and must be remedied. Just because your programming team knows Visual Basic doesn’t mean your entire audience runs XP. Make a Linux version, port it to OS X, and you’ve killed two birds with one keyboard.
7. The Kitchen Sink Ploy
Slap a button here. Put in some hot appz. Make it download music, video, and recipes. Give it a vibrate mode, a 10-megpixel camera, and a scroll wheel. Then add in a fold-out QWERTY keypad, a speakerphone, and maybe a 12-inch screen.
Yes, friends, when in doubt dump everything you can think of into the latest smartphone. Make it a music player. A video recorder. A WiFi terminal. But don’t make it easy to use, stylish, and slim. That is changing, but too often we deal with smartphones that look like boat anchors.
The Cingular 3125 — it’s not a coincidence that most of the phones we’re mentioning that are getting things right are from HTC — is a perfect example. It’s slip, powerful, and smart. If only it didn’t run Windows Mobile 5.
6. Battery Life
My Sidekick 3 officially lasts 10 hours on a charge. The Dash I’m using now lasts about 14. Granted, I get a lot of email and lots of AIM messages, but come on. I feel like Pavlov’s dogs — when the battery hits one bar I know I’m in trouble so I race to an outlet. None to be found? No email for you!
This is 2006. I have a Blackberry from 2002 that lasts about a week on one charge and standard phones service at least a few days. I realize there’s a lot of radio usage that might effect battery life, but come on. 12 hours? 10?
We’ll accept a slightly larger package, people. I mean the SK3 is as big as a Choco-Taco, yet the battery life is atrocious. How about this - work with the laptop people on new, smaller batteries that actually hold a charge and, as an added bonus, don’t explode.
5. The UI is a Vast Wasteland
Many smartphone applications are like cockroaches — they scurry at the first sign of movement. Pick up almost any smartphone — Palm OS devices excluded — and you’re offered a “start page” full of arcane symbols and strange readouts. Need a real app? Figure out which menu button to press, drill down through menu after menu, and start it up. Need to take a call? You’d best remember where you are, because you might not find that app again.
My welcome screen needs a few basic icons and a few notifications. I want to be able to find BubbleBreaker in a second rather than a century.
4. Software, Software Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink
While on the topic of apps, let’s talk about third-party offerings. There are literally thousands of programs out there — alarm clocks, games, currency convertors, and the like. Out of the box, however, most smartphones come hopelessly crippled. Give me a nice selection of apps and maybe a nice link to an online store for “signed” and “tested” applications that will work with my phone. Otherwise, I’m going to download 50 world clocks until I find the right one. And I’m going to be angry.
3. Dude, You Disabled My Bluetooth
…or my camera or my cellular modem or something I need to get my work done. You pick up a smartphone expecting it to have the features you read about on the Internets. Then you buy it, take it home, and find out that most of those cool features that were available in Asia or Europe are disabled by the carrier. This hasn’t happened lately, but when it happens, it usually means the carrier is trying to milk 25 cents per MMS message sent rather than letting us send our baby snaps via email.
Greed shouldn’t stand in the way of innovation; it shouldn’t but that’s never stopped the greedy.
2 Remember: It’s Still a Phone…
There are two parts to the word smartphone: “smart” and “phone” (edit: Biggs went to college to be able to deduce that. - Blake) The smart part a lot of companies have a lock on — give it a processor, an OS, maybe a keyboard and a PIM. But what about the phone part? If you own a Blackberry, put it up to your ear and stand in front of a mirror. You look like an ass. It’s big, bulky, and blue. Slap a Dash or any other uber-thin smartphone up to your head and stand in the street. Apparently the processor is so big it pushed out all of the wind canceling circuitry, because 9 times out of 10 your smartphone is going to peter out. Remember, smartphone people, we still need to make-and-take calls. Snake 2000 is great but if I can’t figure out which end is up on my new Nokia, how am I going to get through to granny?
Before you ship, test the phone. We can live with a few OS slowdowns if you can ensure a good quality call. Otherwise, your product is worthless.
1 Windows Mobile 5.0
Oh. My. God. Could this thing be any worse? It’s like a telephone menu system without the nice lady telling you what to do. Press 9 to go to setup. Hit 1 to delete an email. Press 4 to run miniWord! Press 8 to slow things down to a crawl by adding more than 50 contacts in your address book! Write once! Run everywhere! Sure, if you reduce your UI to a list of characters on a screen topped by a shiny icon. Windows Mobile 5.0 must die and let us be the ones to bury it.
Sam Jackson (Who am I?)
1 year ago
I have to say I’m not all that psyched about the WM5 SP on my Q. That being said, WM5 is still more powerful than some godawful carrier crap on a ‘dumber’ phone, so I’ll take what I can get. There are quick tweaks for some things–like mass mark read, there are add-ins people have made to do that [or mass delete]–but other things could use some help from the builders etc. For instance, the BACKLIGHT. Off, dim, retina-scarring. No one can set it at anything else yet because no one knows how. (Candlelight will toggle to ‘dim’ for say, my Q, which is fine most of the time and saves battery)
I can’t believe SK3 gives you 10 hours… I always imagined a couple lifetimes out of that thing, given its size. I feel even better about my slim sexy Q now that I know even some of the brickier things have equally atrocious battery life, though!
gelled li-poly batteries could be excellent help soon, I guess. Add .1 inches and get a great deal of battery time out of that. Oh, how I yearn for nano supercapacitors… god damn periodic table.
Vince Veneziani (Who am I?)
1 year ago
Oh my gawwwwd.
Go get me some corned beef from the goddamned deli.
Seriously though, Windows Mobile 5.0 phones suck. Give us OS X support.
Vinny (Who am I?)
1 year ago
I have my plain old Nextel phone, which does all of the following:
- originates and receives cellular calls.
My cell service is dirt cheap, and it is fairly reliable. My phone doesn’t crash, I can go days on a charge, and there are no surprises when I get my bill.
I’m not a huge fan of ‘give me one device that does it all.’ I prefer ‘give me a device that does what it is SUPPOSED to do well, and I don’t mind carrying another for a different task. I tried music on the Palm, calendar and contact management on the phone, recording on my Palm AND my phone. The bottom line is you CAN do it, but do you want to? Some of these additions are the equivalent of me digging out my Commodore 64 and opening QLink to surf the internet.
I can do it, but why would I?
Steve (Who am I?)
1 year ago
Smartphone makers had a collective brain fart and forgot that the thing is a phone. My $550 Treo 650 running on Verizon is the worst phone I have ever used including the 1 pound Qualcom phone I got got back in 1990. Everyone, and I do mean everyone I call feels compelled to recommend a new phone to me. The only people I recommend it to are those that work at companies that compete with my own…
Thank G-d I was able to expense it!
1stage (Who am I?)
1 year ago
Meh.
Nope. Way off base.
Maybe I’m spoiled by HTC, but I agree with almost nothing you’ve stated above. WM5 to WM 2003 is like Windows 95 as compared to Windows 3.5; it’s no XP (or Vista, or OS X), but it works just fine.
DrWatson (Who am I?)
1 year ago
> Vinny
>give me a device that does what it is SUPPOSED
> to do well, and I don’t mind carrying another for a
> different task
Are you serious? Do you wear something like a utility belt? I really dislike carrying more than what is strictly necessary, and I’m not even mentioning managing all the different cables and adapters that each one needs.
justin flood (Who am I?)
1 year ago
I have to agree with you on windows mobile. But I just got myself a blackberry pearl, and I have to say it probably addresses almost every point you made in your article. Give it a try sometime, I think you’ll be impressed!
Icey Cake
1 year ago
I do agree with justin. I got my Blackberry 8100 (pearl) for a month now. It’s really a SMART + PHONE. It looks and works like a phone while it works as a PDA like a charm. The battery just lasts forever (with 24/7 push emails enabled). Try it and you won’t regret.
As for the Windows Mobile 5, I also agree we should bury it. It’s just a PDA with phone feature (vs a phone with PDA feature). It’s not a phone. It’s a brick and a piece of junk. It’s heavy, battery sucks, very bad UI design. I don’t want to start a flam war though. So please excuse me.
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Eugenia (Who am I?)
1 year ago
WM5 Smartphone Edition is NOT the same as WM5 PocketPC Edition. Personally, I can’t stand the Smartphone edition (the one that’s on the Motorola Q). I like PPC editions, they ARE functional.
RMAN (Who am I?)
1 year ago
I just don’t think anything worthwhile has happened to smart phones since the Treo. Is there any real innovation in the area of smart phones or PDAs.
Is the current version of the Palm OS much better that the first colour version. Battery live is certainly ni better than my Visor
Peterh2o (Who am I?)
1 year ago
Cheers!!! Even with the OTA on my sk3 the battery life isn’t that much better :sigh: I absolutely hate WM5!!!!
Rich (Who am I?)
1 year ago
A smartphone I’m considering (currently have the Dash) that you can’t get directly here in the US is the Nokia E61. As it’s not subsidized by a US phone company it’s expensive, but has Wi-fi and can run Voice-ip stuff.
You have to consider the market in the US. We live in a provider controlled market. If Verizon or Sprint or whoever doesn’t like the features of a phone, it’ll never get put on the market. It doesn’t matter if the consumer likes it or hates it. It’s the provider’s call what is available, not yours. Thus, companies who want to do business in the US have to sell “features” to the phone companies, not to end consumers.
Some evidence of this:
Lockable phones
Water sensitive “red dots”
The box the phone comes in has provider branding, not the manufacturer.
crippled/gutted features
—–Nokia E62 has no wi-fi, but otherwise is the E61
—–Dash’s touch strip is useless compared to European version (HTC Excalibur)
Don’t expect things to change unless Congress bans 1-2 year contracts. (not happening)
moe (Who am I?)
1 year ago
At least treo is not bad at the battery performance..
That’s the footnote.
ASSociate (Who am I?)
1 year ago
I hate my Tmo 650, so I went looking for something else was shocked. This is the best thing out there. How is that possible? I sucks - but everything else I tried sucks worse. I event tried the bberry pearl, but hated the two letters per key thing.
I agree with your comments. Give me something with these features and I’ll be really happy:
1) a working phone with speakerphone - it should work at least as well as my 1992 Audiovox bag phone.
2) email - push/pull whatever works
3) calendar
4) to do list
5) internet browser
6) ability to sync with Outlook - when I say “ability,” I mean I can make it do that without a degree from MIT
7) battery that will last from when I wake up until I go to bed - usually about 18 hours
8) bluetooth
9) a REAL keyboard
10) something slim enough I can put it in my front pocket without
11) Test it really well so it doesnt freeze on me and reset when I need to make an important call
I really dont need anything else. Yes, I’m sure. Now just go and make it.
jacob (Who am I?)
1 year ago
other than the “size” complaint (and possibly the apps one), the blackberry 8700 pretty much passes all of those points above. The mute button on the top of the phone, the volume dial on the right, the “notification settings” button on the left are all very useful (and I use ‘em all the time). If I want to make a call, I just press the green “talk” button and dial-in my number. If I want to compose a msg, my inbox is at the upper right hand corner of the UI and I can easiler compose SMS, or Email from the same place. The phone uses USB both for connectivity and for power and despite the large, vibrant screen I generally get 2+ days *active* use out of it (data and voice, constantly). There is even a button in the middle of the screen that opens up my web browser to the last page I had visited.
Really, the only complaint I have with the blackberry is the size. The width is good (I explictly passed up the pearl because I wanted a full size keyboard) but if they could reduce the… um.. depth? of the phone by at least a third I think it would be just about perfect. In terms of apps, I found it rather trivial to add in a couple of key apps I care about (berry411, google maps, gcalsync, and gmail) and installation/configuration was a breeze.
And this device doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a pure communication tool. I’m interested in the next-gen version to see what happens when they try to add in multimedia (and wifi!) capabilities, but for now, I’m happy. and hey, they could screw it up.
by the way, keep the darn cameras away from my smartphone. I hate having my phone taken away when I visit another company. I feel totally naked! If you’re going to add a camera, make sure there is an option without for us business users. thx!
Awesom-o (Who am I?)
1 year ago
Geez. Get a Blackberry and stop bitching.
It uses mini USB, it doesn’t try to contain the “whole kitchen sink”, it’s quick and responsive, it doesn’t have errors, the ergonomics are fine (try the 7130c for smaller form factor).
Push email, usable keypad, etc. etc. Decent battery life, great third party apps.
Great phone use. Useable bluetooth. Great UI.
Should I keep going?
Sounds to me like you guys need to get your heads out of your asses, and review CERTAIN smartphones, instead of just saying “smartphones suck”.
billy (Who am I?)
1 year ago
I agree with Awesome-o.
Blackberry’s don’t have any of those issues listed in this article. I think you threw the baby out with the bathwater.
My blackberry can ssh, manage our servers, send/receive email, do the web, work well as a phone, and I’m still on a blackberry 7290. Blackberry truly is the enterprise leader when it comes to having a “smart phone” or whatever you want to call it.
Graham (Who am I?)
1 year ago
I got an Orange SPV-C500 from Ebay priced $120, unlocked *unlocking is most important in smartphone*
I Can’t understand you people I Love the Windows Mobile 2003 SE.
I think the problem with you people is that you’re all a bunch of tossers and are never satisfied.
Shall I tell you what I like about it? Well Its Mp3 Player…Video Player ..Basically a Jack of all trades and Boy …its a fucking good fone…to find someone I just need to type in 2 characters bang I’ve gotten rid of scrolling through my contacts…for about an hour…with mp3 used for 2 hours a day ..it lasts 3 days thats more than my dads motorola Razr which doesnt even have an mp3 player and lasts …yes a day.
The smartphone allows me to my online Blog on the Ride home while simultanously litsening to mp3s….Wow if that sucks ..YOU SHOULD GET AN IPOD…cos ur a macocksucker. fags
Darren
1 year ago
I couldn’t disagree more. I have been using my Verizon XV6700 now for almost a year and the I couldn’t be more happy. Sluggish Contacts?? Poor Phone functionality?? Bluetooth crippling?? That may be the case for cheap products running Windows Mobile but the products HTC puts out are Solid. I think some of the people leaving these responses need to play with more than a Cheap Motorola Q, which is not the same OS as other Windows Mobile phones, before they bash the entire suite of Windows Mobile phones.
The XV6700/PPC6700 has features non of the competitors have; A2DP. Which is Stereo Bluetooth. And it works flawlessly.
I love Blackberry’s as well but I can’t do much with it besides read email and talk on the phone.
Windows Mobile allows me to easily view email attachments, attach my own email attachments from the phone, Watch Live and recorded TV via Sling Mobile and a sling box I have at home, Multiple music/video players are available that work great, Good web browsers, Multiple Voice dialing/recognition software… And the list goes on and on and on.
I just don’t want anyone to read the above posts and fall for the windows bashing as 100% truth. This article would have made more sense if it was written 2 years ago but it just doesn’t apply to Windows Mobile Smartphones available today.
Check out the XV6700/PPC6700 if you get a chance. If it does way too much than what you would use a phone for, then blackberry’s are the way to go for sure. Might as well Save your cash.
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Grant (Who am I?)
1 year ago
Put me down as another happy Pearl owner. I still think BlackBerry could do better to support OS X (PocketMac? puh-lease), but otherwise it’s a remarkably capable device with a minimum of unthought-out complexity. Decent third party app support (though not as good as S60v2), great battery life, Send/End keys (I’m looking at _you_, Sony-Ericsson), good bluetooth support and a great messaging app. Sure beats my old Nokia 6600.
Ben (Who am I?)
1 year ago
Hi John, maybe you should just get a BlackBerry? easy to use, email accounts in a jiff, usb mini port, usb charging, mac osx sync (i know it is PocketMac but it does work well). did i mention that the phone works well too? i have the 8700…
Artemis
1 year ago
I’m not sure how most of you could be so down on Windows Mobile.
Synchronizing is about as easy as it can be. In the corporate environment (where I think many WM users come from), simply enter your server, name and password and there you are, all synchronized in minutes on a new device.
Yes, the quality of the phone reception/calling does depend on which manufacturer, but that’s an issue with any platform.
Windows Mobile 5 offers what any other platform has in terms of functionality, flexibility and excels in enabling mobile corporate applications.
For those Palm fans, the Windows Mobile 5 Palm 700/750 is pretty amazing, yes the screen is a bit smaller, but outside of that, it’s extremely easy to use.
There will never be a one-size-fits-all solution, use what you like, if you don’t like Windows Mobile (or whatever platform), don’t use it.
I’ll never understand the time wasted by those that just like to bash other products.
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Pooley (Who am I?)
1 year ago
Treo 650. Just get one. Simple.
Great battery life
Good contacts app, searching for a contact is superb
Reliable (as long as you don’t install loads of dodgy freeware apps)
Good phone, usable hands free speakerphone
Good organiser
Lots of good, reliable software, Note Studio, Life Balance, Sudoko
Would buy another one tomorrow if I lost my current one. Though I’d shy away from the 700v as it uses Windows Mobile.
Patrick (Who am I?)
1 year ago
smartphones suck… How about qualifying that statement by discussing the platform thats actually the industry leader?
Symbian OS doesn’t have the problems you suggest.
Here in australia our carriers aren’t bitchy, penny pinching bastards (well not as much as the USA) and i picked up a Nokia E61 - Great battery life, speaker phone, wifi, bluetooth, 3G… Does push email through blackberry connect and has a qwerty thumbboard.
Works great. Feels snappy - i can even play divx movies on it if i like. The included software was fantastic. All i added was a gameboy emulator and opera (cause i’m so used to it from my old s60 handset which didn’t have as good an included browser).
The active standby gets me to basically any application i commonly use within like two or three clicks. The PIM stuff probably isn’t as extensive as other things but i dunno i like it. Simple and relatively easy to use.
Its also thin enough to put in my pants without looking like i stuffed a potato in there. It probably is a little heavy though. Cause its got a metal case.
M Freitas (Who am I?)
1 year ago
#1 for Windows Mobile 5.0? Are you aware there are two menu types, one with icons, another with numbers?
Have you *really* used a Symbian device? I mean, the S60 with no touch screens? It’s not much different than Windows Mobile 5.0 in terms of menus. And function access.
cheezr (Who am I?)
1 year ago
I agree WM5 should be buried!
my cingular 2125 freezes at the worse moments and the UI is so slow in general that it is mostly unuseable.
I really am disappointed with it and will most likely not purchase another “smart” phone.
i want something with a clean ui, reliable, easy to use and with a screen that i can read without a magnifying glass!
(thinking either sony 790a or treo 680…time will tell)
Czr
Patrick (Who am I?)
1 year ago
M Freitas -
Have you used an Symbian OS 9.1 device?
Its a big improvement over 8.
And about the menus i didn’t find it too hard to get to anything. Once you know what you use just set it as stuff on the active standby menu.
MacQ (Who am I?)
1 year ago
Hilarious, great read… thanks for throwing raw meat to the user experience community!
david
1 year ago
i have been using an se p900 for 3 years and couldn’t be happier! i have experienced none of these issues.
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Paul (Who am I?)
1 year ago
I have a Blackberry (7950) and suspected I look like a dork with it, but this confirms it. A personal thanks to crunch gear for raising my self-awareness.
Dovi (Who am I?)
1 year ago
I still miss my StarTac. Great battery life, compact, fantastic call quality, told me who was calling and who I’d called. Perfect.
Maybe someday I’ll pick up a mini-tablet for multimedia purposes, but in the meantime, just give me a great phone that works, full stop.
Karl (Who am I?)
1 year ago
Hi,
great! fantastic!
Try a Treo 650.
But i was laughing out loud after I read this article.
Karl
Chris Mosetick (Who am I?)
1 year ago
I have been using my Motorola A1000 here in Seattle for almost two years and I will say that I have yet to see any comparable models relased in the U.S. The A1000 knocks the socks off 99% of phones on the U.S. market and its considered a dinosaur by phone standards at over two years old. Full HTML web browser. POP and SMTP makes checking email a two second process. Handwriting recognition or on screen keyboard. Why the hell any one would want a bulky keyboard with actual keys baffles me. Try a full on touch screen with the A1000. Add in the 1.2 megapixel camera, and too many goodies to list. I don’t know why any one would even think about purchasing a phone that is being sold in the U.S.
Jay (Who am I?)
1 year ago
This guy is an Idiot, he’s never used a PC in his life, the smartphones are not for you dolt!
Bill Debug (Who am I?)
1 year ago
He’s right about one thing. WM5 has no simple way to delete all messages/contacts/tasks you name it. How silly is that?
Otherwise, I really like my Treo 700wx.
Have any of you Einsteins figured out ‘voice command’? It rocks!
Bill Debug (Who am I?)
1 year ago
Figured it out finally. Using WM5 on my Treo you can select all in messages and then delete. Piece of cake.
Now, should I post this secret or just let people salivate?
Feeling mean, guess I won’t tell tonight.
Give you a hint though. It’s kind of like mouse-click and drag to select multiple items.
firewall (Who am I?)
1 year ago
Luogo interessante, buon disegno, lo gradisco, signore! =)
Zeeboid (Who am I?)
1 year ago
It sounds like you do not know how to work your smart phones. I have had several of the phones you list, and I have not been happier with the Pocket Pc WM5 smartphones. it plugs in using a USB connection, and is compatable with 97% of the computers on the market (Yes, Apple Sucks) and I have had no problems adding contacts or using it, as it appears you have.
When it comes to Apple compatability… this is what you get form a company who wants you to “think Diffrent.” you get something that is so diffrent, its incom-freaking-padable with everything. thats not the phone’s fault, its Apple’s
Mike
1 year ago
This sounds like a very oversimplified grandma-type article. AHHHH! There’s so many BUTTONS! Email?! Whats that? Pop? Server? AHHHH! How do I work this camera doohickey?! Get with it man. These things do everything, and my little brother (9), was playing Doom on my phone (Nokia N70) without me even telling him it was on it. I don’t know… for someone to blog, on the internet, about how difficult new technology is… pretty ironic, pretty sad.