Dedicated Devices

I'm not a fan of hybrid products. In days of yore, there was the photocopier/printer/scanner/fax in one that functioned adequately enough, but gave poor results. Nowadays, it's all about the portable stuff, such as the mobile phone/digital camera, mobile phone/mp3 player, video camera/mp3 player. Again, while they might excel in one aspect, the other suffers. And as someone else put it, why would the leaders in one industry, let's say Canon for cameras, share their technology with others, such as Nokia when it comes to mobile phones?

Most devices today want to feature mp3 playback. Playback's fine but don't really expect your phone to be an mp3 player. When the first radio/mobile phones came out, I was very skeptical of it. Not because it couldn't do it, but one limitation of phones right now is battery life. Sure, they can last an average of three days on standby mode, but actual talk-time (or simply playing games) is limited to around three hours tops. Do you imagine yourself listening to mp3's for only three hours and expect your phone not to be working for the rest of the day? And when it comes to cameras, the high megapixel barrier hasn't been broken yet, at least for hybrid devices. I've seen a couple of camera phones and honestly, it's not just the fact that it's 1 megapixel that's bothering me. Photos (and videos) are usually choppy, grainy, or simply horribly lit that more often than not, people appear as silhouettes.

That's not to say I condemn all hybrid devices. Some are well integrated with each other and are designed to work well together. Take Sony's PSP for example: gaming and video. The iPod Video: music, video, and photos. The O2's mobile phone and PDA capabilities (but sadly not its other functions). As for the rest, well, either technology should get better, or companies should start working together. I have yet to see a good digital camera that does something else effectively, for example. In the meantime, if you want to listen to music, buy an mp3 player and please, don't buy into those ads that tell you your phone can play mp3s and video. Sure it can for the sake of saying so, just not for a long time.