The Elusive Super Phone

HTC announce their shiny new Touch Diamond recently. Everyone ooh’ed and aah’ed while ogling at it until they realized that HTC has taken a step back (or forward towards matching Apple’s iPhone crap) by removing the expansion card slot from the phone. Yes, it has 4 GB of internal storage but I’d rather have an SDHC card slot with the ever falling prices of solid state memory (an 8 GB Class 6 SDHC card is worth not more than around 60$ these days). With a history of ultimate-gift-to-mankind phones like HTC Tytn, HTC Tytn II (Kaiser), iPhone, etc that excite so much on the first look and then start becoming dimmer and unwanted as the euphoria settles, we are left to wonder when will we see the real “Super Phone”. The do-it-all-be-all-end-all phone.

Well, my prediction is (Nostradamus style) : NEVER. No sir, you are not going to see your dream phone any time soon, or any time at all, for that matter.

Why do I say that. The reasons are pretty obvious, once we take off our wishful thinking hats and don the smart thinking ones.

1. A new dream every day: Around 8-10 years ago, I wished I had a cell phone. Around 6 years ago, I wish I had one with a camera. Around 4 years ago, I wish I had a phone with Mp3 player and expandable memory. 3 years ago I wished for a smart phone. Now, I wish for…. You get it. By the time something comes out, our dreams have already moved on. After all they  aren’t called “dreams” just like that

2. Where is the money: You might be ready to give a fortune (and your first born son) for that ultimate phone, but the evil-phone-conglomerate wants much more than that. They want you to be slaves. They don’t want the world to spend a huge amount in one go and then stop. They need to mint more money and too much more frequently than you’d like to spend. This is why the strategy works. Give out a phone that has slim form factor, nice UI, wi-fi, but then make the processor crappy (Touch), then lure them with a better processor but take out the wi-fi (Touch Dual), Add the wi-fi back and slap in a keyboard too, but keep’em wanting for better graphics (Kaiser), give ‘em a shiny new toy, but then lock it down in every possible (iCrap). So, you’d be stuck in the vicious circle of “upgrades” and keep the phone factory churning.

So, my dear fellow phone lovers, stop wasting your time waiting for that ultimate phone, and go “upgrade” at once, because “that” phone with just “that” one more feature…ISN’T COMING…