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Samsung were deliberately cloning Apple

What kind of idiotic mods modded this post up to +4? This is the kind of person who would probably claim that the F700 was a clone of the iPhone since it's a black monolith with a single button. Never mind that it was released before the iPhone and that most of the samsung phones look much more like the F700 than the iPhone.

And apparently they copied the charger? This is beyond vapid. It's a cuboid with two pins on the end, just like the charger I had for my Zaurus SL-C3000 in 2004.

My Android couldn't run Opera properly on the stock Orange ROM, MoDaCo's finest, nor CM 7+ (currently on 7.1.0).
The idea of Opera is sound, the program does several things really well, but for showing pages, using JavaScript forms, and several other tasks MobileSafari kicks it's arse.

ymmv

Galaxy S 2: 125.3 mm x 66.1 mm x 9.91 mm (8.49mm thick in some places)
iPhone 4S: 115.2 mm x 58.66 mm x 9.3 mm

Question 1: Since when was 9.91mm less than 9.3mm?
http://blog.gsmarena.com/the-apple-iphone-4-declared-slimmer-than-the-samsung-galaxy-s-ii/
Question 2: Since when was the volume of the Galaxy S 2 (over 700) less than the iPhone 4S (less than 630), even taking into consideration the banana shape of the Samsung?

Also consider that Morphie Juice Packs are more readily available than replacement batteries for the Samsung Galaxy S 2 and the utility of a removable battery is pretty much negated.

While your point is almost right, and I look for a bit smaller than the largest phones myself. I also agree that Apple got the size right for most people (and battery life too).

But I totally disagree with all half-decent Android phones being huge. See Atrix 4G vs iPhone 4

Atrix 4G was one of the first dual core phones, nearly top hardware for its time except for Samsung Galaxy S2. It is lighter than iPhone 4 and only slightly (8%) wider. Length is the same (2% longer) and thickness doesn't matter for holdability, pocketability as long as it is less than about 20 mm.

Sony Ericsson has lots of models much smaller than iPhones, though not flagship products but close followers. Though there are other problems, ideological and practical with Sony Ericsson's phones so it is out for me.

First: I personally don't own any Apple products, thus your assertion is wrong.

In fact, here is a comment explaining why I HATE these types of phones, and here is a comment describing the phone that I do own. Yes, it's a simple old Nokia 6303c, with buttons, with camera taken out and with all phone unrelated functions turned off.

Thus I have just proven another AC to be wrong on his assertions. What an accomplishment.

Secondly: the wealth of new ideas that Jobs has generated are more than just the iPhones and iPads and iPods, all that.

He also produced the first computer animated movies, like Toy Story. He basically ensured that Pixar lives.

While you may be in a camp of hating Apple products, you cannot deny, that other products have borrowed extensively from Apple hardware and software solutions, as so many current gadgets look like they might have been created by Apple, and it's not a coincidence. So yes, by saying what you are saying, you are proving to be an idiot, which was my point.

Of-course I was not talking about that kind of idiot, I was more talking about this kind of idiot, but you are almost out there with them.

They made it successful because they made it visible to every person who ever purchases their product. I have worked with Blackberries since they were only two-way pagers and I was always frustrated looking for apps for my then cutting edge Blackberry 6230. I had to go from one site with one app to another. I finally stumbled across Handango and one of my first thoughts was RIM should inform their customers about this site to make it easier to get apps for their Blackberries. Apple just took the next logical step and created the gateway themselves.

Any phone smart enough to run Linux us smart enough to run WP7.

Yes, but they were probably talking about embedded Linux, not what you currently think of when you think of the Linux stack, or even the x86 Linux kernel.

And in that sense, no, embedded Linux can have a much smaller footprint than WP7. Have you even seen the minimum requirements for WP7? They're not super high by today's standards, but they're not super low either. I think Microsoft even stated it as a benefit that they were not going to start their phone with low end hardware.

Me too. But... http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n9-3398.php

Here: http://www.gsmarena.com/rumor_intel_to_discontinue_meego_development_temporarily-news-3087.php

and here: http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2011/09/intel-denies-giving-up-on-meego-but-it-doesnt-mean-much.ars

forces ATT to their knees to have $15/month non-subscription plans

AT&T only exists in the USA. They are irrelevant globally.

is about to come out with a world/universal phone that works on ALL networks, and basically takes the power from the lame cell carriers and brick dumb handset manufacturers. You know, innovation, right?

Yes, because nobody has ever done that before.

If this is Viral Marketing, they owe Jason Chen a very, VERY big apology and probably a rather hefty settlement check,

Very informative thread. I'm looking for my first Android and didn't know that microSD ports are useless unless the Apps and stock bundles are designed with them in mind*

It doesn't help that the Desire only has 500MB RAM (really, I'm surprised the rom is the same size). The funny thing is that even the Gingerbread update is almost 200MB. The file sizes of the Android updates on the HTC page have been ballooning, and it's curious that Android as owned by google has only been out since late 2008, and doubled in size. The HTC android updates page shows an alarming, trend, though not new:

Portable/embedded software continues to grow bloated at a pace that portable consumer hardware doesn't care to fix --compare to dd-wrt failing to fit in your tiny router's RAM.

* It resembles Windows devs who took a decade to learn coding guidelines that would finally stop trying to put config files in (now) read-only folders, have a modern "File open" call and use the "My Documents" folders... even longer for Apache to even ship with an installer fully supporting space-containing foldernames, so that it could finally be installed under "Program Files" --that feature wasn't there in 2005 and you got stuck with C:\Apache and would change that "at your own risk"

T-Mobile has pretty bad coverage. But if you don't mind paying a little extra for a smartphone (I believe even some non-smartphones support this) you can get one with UMA support, like Bold 9700, and wherever you have wifi (even abroad), you have cell coverage. You don't have to pay anything extra with T-Mobile. Some AT&T phones support this too, but I don't know if they'll bleed you dry for it.

Did you even read the summary?

27,000 litigants x $1000 each in damages = $27 million

Last quarter they made $7 billion in profit.

Have a look for yourself.

Of course the iPhone looked nothing like phones created four years ago .. not!

You seem to have missed this piece of info from the same Wikipedia article on the LG Prada:

"LG Electronics has claimed the iPhone's design was copied from the LG Prada. Woo-Young Kwak, head of LG Mobile Handset R&D Center, said at a press conference, “We consider that Apple copied the Prada phone after the design was unveiled when it was presented in the iF Design Award and won the prize in September 2006."

http://www.gsmarena.com/lg_ke850_ke770_kg910_at_if_design-news-245.php - 17 Jan, 2007

While browsing through the iF product design awards 2007 we noticed not one, but three unannounced LG phones - KE850, KE770 and KG910. The LG KE850, also known as "Prada phone" has a large touchscreen display and strikingly resembles the recently announced Apple iPhone. We don't know much about the technical specifications of the new LG phone, but some leaked photos of the interface look quite similar to what we have seen on the Apple iPhone presentation last week. Here is the short presentation of the LG KE850 from the iF design award web site...

Gee, maybe the information in Wikipedia is wrong - surely a first. Or maybe Woo-Young Kwak simply was confused by the fact that September 2006 was the end-date of submission of products for the iF DA 2007. There is no award in September, never was.

Still misunderstanding the world I see...

Maybe you would prefer it if MSFT took the "sue your ass off" route that Apple currently uses?

And what "sue your ass off" route would that be, exactly? The only major lawsuit that come to mind that aren't countersuits are the one against Samsung for copying Apple's designs. It's quite possible there are more, but it's definitely not some sort of "route that Apple currently uses".

It is kind of funny though, you mention lawsuits that MS has undertaken, and are currently undertaking, but somehow they *aren't* taking a '"sue your ass off" route', whereas Apple, who isn't engaged in such suits, is?

Uhm.. regardless of Microsoft, Apple is considered a quite aggressive litigious company. To the extent of even suing teenage driven Mac fan sites. Which though not patent related is RIAA-level low in my view. Some other Apple lawsuits or threats (not by a long shot an extensive list, but what turned up in a quick search) in addition to Samsung suit you mentioned and not including suits like the multitouch patent suit Apple filed against Motorola, as you excluded "countersuits".

Apple sues HTC for infringing 20 iPhone patents
Apple Threatening Patent Lawsuits Over New Palm Pre
Amazon Appstore is now live, Apple is suing for the name
The Reason Why Apple Is Suing Sanho Corp. (HyperMac) Revealed


--
“And boy, have we patented it.” — Steve Jobs, 2007.

Hmm, I think they engineered the Nokia N8 specifically to act as a proper camera, spec-wise. It has an unusually larger sensor, given it's a smartphone (1/1.83)

You may like to read a review of the camera: http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n8-review-523p6.php

Also, here is a comparison of photographs: http://www.fonearena.com/blog/24096/nokia-n8-vs-canon-ixus-130-camera-comparison.html

I think the N8 *can* be considered to be a replacement for a entry level camera. Whether it can be considered as a replacement for the latest smartphone, is another issue.

How non-technical, and after how thorough of a look?

I'll just leave these here...

http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-297432.html
http://gigaom.com/2008/08/31/dont-like-the-iphone-check-out-these-touchscreen-phones/
http://www.gsmarena.com/newscomm-769.php
http://www.telecomasia.net/node/5199
http://www.google.com/search?q=SPH-1300&hl=en&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=jjfATeTDOIL30gHT_tXuBA&ved=0CC4QsAQ&biw=1680&bih=947
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=ET&p_theme=et&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EEF6B3EB0A8C768&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM
http://cgi.ebay.com/SPRINT-PCS-PALM-OS-WIRELESS-PHONE-SPH-1300-DUAL-BAND-/180613037497
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2000-09-25/news/18143226_1_cell-phone-palm-os
http://www.geardiary.com/2006/11/30/the-palm-treo-700p-palm-os-smartphone-review/
http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=1690
http://www.gizmag.com/go/2306/
http://www.google.com/search?q=sony+p900
http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/10/13/lg.debuts.new.prada.phone/
http://www.esato.com/phones/compare.php?phone=433&cp=439
http://gizmodo.com/#!190670/cect-a1000-touchscreen-phone-with-1000-hours-standby
http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/at-t-8525/4505-6452_7-32133413.html?tag=lia;rcol

these aren't phones, but what the hell... they could still be mistaken for an iPhone at a glance...

http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/prodserv/handheld.html
http://www.suddenlink.net/pages/curtismc/palms.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_III

I don't like Apple or their products, but that image with the poorly spelled caption is wrong. The F700 was shown in February 2007 and released in November/December 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_SGH-F700
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_f700-1849.php

Okay, you found one. The rest of it looks different to me - unless you go after the overall "grid of icons with common actions toolbar at bottom" look and feel, which has been a part of smartphones for ages.

It looks like an iPhone in the story because it IS a fucking iPhone. They don't show the Galaxy i9000 until comparison shots, and once they do, it looks nothing like an iPhone.

Don't worry, this is more Apple patent abuse. You know what it looks like more than an iPhone?

Any number of similar Android phones. Funny, that.

Because of the Wildfire S

http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_wildfire_s-3777.php

A bit more RAM, better screen, better processor... But still a low end device.

And I think people are getting the wrong idea here. These phones are in no way unusable (some of them are actually are quite good for the price), but they aren't in the same league as the top Andoird phones or the iPhone (the one "Android" gets compared to).

The Nook Color has the same amount of ram as the Galaxy Tab. I don't know what you are talking about there.
http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/nook-color-technical/3483-nookcolor-full-specifications.html
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_p1000_galaxy_tab-3370.php

In addition rooting allows overclocking the Nook Color which greatly increases the speed.

Indeed, look at top handsets in top20 countries of this report. Just look at them; beyond some probably fairly atypical (but vocal and visible) place. Curious way of being "toast"...

Who knows... at the very least, this deal means a lot of Winmob7 phones pretty soon. With Nokia most likely dominating - other phone makers brought, what, just ~2 million of them onto the market till now? Now they might even shun the platform, they don't depend on it & so it's easy for them, if it appears like Nokia might be getting a preferential treatment (at the least keeping Ovi Maps to themselves, and certainly deals with carriers / mobile payments). Last year Nokia sold over 100 million Symbian phones, and growing... and since now they say there are plans for just ~150 million more, that means a pretty quick switchover. With, all things said, a pretty decent OS, and which will certainly have all the "required" apps - plus IMHO a very real chance to rapidly pick up steam in mobile gaming. Then there are hundreds of millions of people still loyal to Nokia, many will want to upgrade from their "feature phones", and since Winmob7 is supposed to be now spread across a spectrum of handsets at different price points...
The "leaked" handset (yeah, "who knows?") doesn't look half bad, too...

Only the Windows logo is a bit disturbing / too bad it's still MS... ;/

Plus, it's a company which succesfully reinvneted, reorganized itself numerous times... this shift is even quite minor in comparison.

This takeover(?) by foreign corporate culture seems to have been in the making for some time - the (apparently) upcoming / new head of Nokia smartphone division ... is a long past veteran of Compaq and then HP. The (apparently) new head of mobile phone division ... a marketer, gaining experience selling sport clothes and cleaning products, already for some time with Nokia as the head of N. American division (WTF? Somebody from the only geographic division where Nokia doesn't dominate?)

Or maybe it's even simpler, maybe just some short term stock or financial machinations (just one I've heard somewhere: a way to bring home the "overseas" cash of MS while avoiding tax, by introducing "losses": foregone in the spirit of close cooperation Winmob7 license fees)

At least Qt should be fine, too much heavyweight software uses it, and in worst case scenario - it's LGPL, ex-Trolltech people could pick it up.

And who knows... at the very least, this deal means a lot of Winmob7 phones pretty soon. With Nokia most likely dominating - other phone makers brought, what, just ~2 million of them onto the market till now? Now they might even shun the platform, they don't depend on it & so it's easy for them, if it appears like Nokia might be getting a preferential treatment (at the least keeping Ovi Maps to themselves, and certainly deals with carriers / mobile payments). Last year Nokia sold over 100 million Symbian phones, and growing... and since now they say there are plans for just ~150 million more, that means a pretty quick overhaul. With, all things said, a pretty decent OS, and which will certainly have all the "required" apps - plus IMHO a very real chance to rapidly pick up steam in mobile gaming. Then there are hundreds of millions of people still loyal to Nokia, many will want to upgrade from their "feature phones", and since Winmob7 is supposed to be now spread across a spectrum of handsets at different price points...
The "leaked" handset (yeah, "who knows?") doesn't look half bad, too...

Only the Windows logo is a bit disturbing / it's still MS... ;/

As support for your post, I invite the GP to look at this. Go ahead, click one of those WP7 phones and take a look for yourself.

I've read some comments above the expense of owning a smart phone. Here's what I paid/pay (in the UK).

Handset: Android ZTE Blade - Cost new £100 ($159 USD)

Monthly cost: I'm on PAYG and pay £10 / mo ($16 USD) - I get 500MB data, 300 texts and £10 call credit.

That is not expensive for someone working full time.

Nokia was simply the best phone manufacturer out there. Bar none. They were the ones with the guts to try new things, like a weird flip-and-spin phone that works like a camcorder and had a fantastic camera for its time, a slider flagship with everything you could possibly want in a phone, a fully factory-hackable Linux phone that you upgrade with sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade, a phone with an internal HDD at a time when Flash wasn't that cheap, or more recently a digital camera with a smartphone bolted in that looks and feels like a phone. Not to mention things like giving free music or free offline navigation to all new phones. Now, they'll be constrained by the capabilities of a third-party OS.

Now, what should a Maemo user do: switch to WebOS or Android? And which phones? Neither OS looks as good as Meego, nor do they offer the same level of hackability; and the phones don't look as sweet. Any opinions?

Nokia was simply the best phone manufacturer out there. Bar none. They were the ones with the guts to try new things, like a weird flip-and-spin phone that works like a camcorder and had a fantastic camera for its time, a slider flagship with everything you could possibly want in a phone, a fully factory-hackable Linux phone that you upgrade with sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade, a phone with an internal HDD at a time when Flash wasn't that cheap, or more recently a digital camera with a smartphone bolted in that looks and feels like a phone. Not to mention things like giving free music or free offline navigation to all new phones. Now, they'll be constrained by the capabilities of a third-party OS.

Now, what should a Maemo user do: switch to WebOS or Android? And which phones? Neither OS looks as good as Meego, nor do they offer the same level of hackability; and the phones don't look as sweet. Any opinions?

Nokia was simply the best phone manufacturer out there. Bar none. They were the ones with the guts to try new things, like a weird flip-and-spin phone that works like a camcorder and had a fantastic camera for its time, a slider flagship with everything you could possibly want in a phone, a fully factory-hackable Linux phone that you upgrade with sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade, a phone with an internal HDD at a time when Flash wasn't that cheap, or more recently a digital camera with a smartphone bolted in that looks and feels like a phone. Not to mention things like giving free music or free offline navigation to all new phones. Now, they'll be constrained by the capabilities of a third-party OS.

Now, what should a Maemo user do: switch to WebOS or Android? And which phones? Neither OS looks as good as Meego, nor do they offer the same level of hackability; and the phones don't look as sweet. Any opinions?

Nokia was simply the best phone manufacturer out there. Bar none. They were the ones with the guts to try new things, like a weird flip-and-spin phone that works like a camcorder and had a fantastic camera for its time, a slider flagship with everything you could possibly want in a phone, a fully factory-hackable Linux phone that you upgrade with sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade, a phone with an internal HDD at a time when Flash wasn't that cheap, or more recently a digital camera with a smartphone bolted in that looks and feels like a phone. Not to mention things like giving free music or free offline navigation to all new phones. Now, they'll be constrained by the capabilities of a third-party OS.

Now, what should a Maemo user do: switch to WebOS or Android? And which phones? Neither OS looks as good as Meego, nor do they offer the same level of hackability; and the phones don't look as sweet. Any opinions?

Nokia was simply the best phone manufacturer out there. Bar none. They were the ones with the guts to try new things, like a weird flip-and-spin phone that works like a camcorder and had a fantastic camera for its time, a slider flagship with everything you could possibly want in a phone, a fully factory-hackable Linux phone that you upgrade with sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade, a phone with an internal HDD at a time when Flash wasn't that cheap, or more recently a digital camera with a smartphone bolted in that looks and feels like a phone. Not to mention things like giving free music or free offline navigation to all new phones. Now, they'll be constrained by the capabilities of a third-party OS.

Now, what should a Maemo user do: switch to WebOS or Android? And which phones? Neither OS looks as good as Meego, nor do they offer the same level of hackability; and the phones don't look as sweet. Any opinions?

Bah, back button ate my reply. In short: For most of last year, I would have agreed, all the Android handsets were either crap or too expensive for a gadget that's easily dropped, lost or stolen. But these days there are a few very decent entry-level (around 200 EUR) Android smartphones that strike a balance similar to Nokia's entry-level smartphones. Here are the specs of two, ZTE Blade and Motorola Defy (both have high-res screens, FWIW).

At what point does somebody with outdated information become a liar?

At the point that you presented information as if it were current when in reality it was severely out of date. That's like saying "you can't buy a laptop for less than $1000" and then trying to substitute willful ignorance for dishonesty. What? Was Google Product search not working for you until after you posted?

But I've been told the cheaper Android phones have a dated CPU and GPU, which limits the complexity of compatible games.

Pretty much any smartphone you find is going to have a 500+MHz 32-bit ARM CPU and an Adreno 200, SGX530 or better GPU. That is plenty to run a lot of 3D games or even a PlayStation emulator. GSMArena has full specs on a lot of phones and PDAdb has detailed technical information on the CPU/GPUs used in most of those phones.

Most of them appear to have no slide-out keyboard, which means gamepads like the Game Gripper won't have anything to clip to.

So use the touchscreen. You do know that you can have an onscreen gamepad, right? If you really want your Game Gripper, go buy one of the phones that they support. I know for a fact that you can buy an unlocked Motorola Backflip (which the Game Gripper site lists as compatible) for between $190 and $250.

Wait, wait. How did you go from this

Very light callers, such as those who still have a home phone, tend to stick with cheap phones on prepaid plans rather than the $40 per month plans that the major carriers push.

to this?

How much airtime do you think mom would let an elementary school student or middle school student use?

That's some mighty impressive weasly, backpedaling, contradictory doubletalk right there! So which is it? Very light callers with home phones who tend to stick with prepaid plans or heavy calling kids whose parents worry about the phone bill? If it's the former, that was already answered. If it's the latter, go get a $40/month unlimited nationwide talk/text/web plan with MetroPCS (their smartphones start at $129) or add them to a family plan with some other carrier. Either way, this is just a "think of the children" excuse that wasn't even part of your original gripe.

And when the airtime expires, does access to the home and launcher screens expire with it?

When I pull the SIM out of my phone, all of the apps except for the ones that rely upon a connection work just fine.

I've read stories about the T-Mobile G1 locking to emergency calls only, and no apps, if the SIM isn't valid.

You are talking about a single, already crippled, carrier locked phone that came out almost two and a half years ago. Yeah, surely all smartphones must react the same way as one phone that you "read stories" about.

The Google product pages fail to specify whether a particular phone has a removable battery.

Why can't you do a normal Google, Youtube or GSMArena search on the exact model that you are interested in? Or maybe lookup the phone information on the manufacturer site or just ask them?

Did you mean a spare external battery that plugs into the phone's charge port?

That could work too.

Rather than straight out "off the shelf" devices, wouldn't they be better served by something equivalent to a Panasonic Toughbook. Maybe that could be covered by 3rd party cases (with built-in batteries) but an iPhone is something that requires a bit of protection even for everyday use.

Well the military guys choose 'laptops' (!) like these:
http://www.aselsan.com.tr/urun.asp?urun_id=89&lang=en
Funny is, it is considered to be 'light'.
BTW these things are sold to NATO members army high level personnel only. Don't try to buy like a friend did :)
While on it, it comes with Windows.

A military MD we know keeps buying these.
http://www.gsmarena.com/ericsson_r310s-200.php
Of course as Ericsson did some AOL thing with Sony, they don't produce anymore. You would be really surprised at some 'package not opened' prices for that old phone. So why he keeps buying? Even that monstrous phone can't stand to field conditions in peace time.

The ZTE Blade, right now available only in the UK from Orange, costs £99 ($157) without a contract.

It has an 3.5" 800x480 AMOLED display, capacitive touchscreen, 512MB RAM, a 600 Mhz CPU, 3G, WiFi, GPS, Accelerometers, a 3MP camera, microSD up to 32GB and runs Android 2.1 (first 2.2 ports are available).

"Normal smartphones" will be down to not much more than $100 within the next year and these things will have a hires touchscreen and run Android.

This is not to say that there isn't room for dumb phones, mind you. But price is not the problem.

That's fine for voice, but what about 3G? IIRC, there's no phone that works on both T-Mobile and AT&T for 3G.

From what I understand, the Nokia N8 works pretty much everywhere. It also has a micro-USB connector and can even be a USB host, allowing the phone to read and write a thumb drive.

Decision to make an extenal button (that is easily pressed by mistake) start the per-kilobyte billing? Your call on that. I know what I think.

And you're right. I had a SE W880. That little button on the left, second from the top, took you online. There was no way to disable it, even if the phone's other special buttons were programmable.

This is a small phone with small buttons, and the raised Internet button is between 'OK' and 'Back'. I accidentally pressed that button constantly, if this was not intentional it was a usability error of epic proportions. What's more, if you pressed the button again with the home page open, it would *reload*. Yes, seriously. Sony Ericsson wouldn't do anything like that by mistake, and as the handset manufacturers collaborate closely with the service providers, it's very probable that they got a kickback for it.

I finally found that you can hack (yes, it was not trivial) the browser's home page url to point to a local image. The issue was still an annoyance, but no longer a costly one.

The Sony Ericsson Android and WinMo phones already out do not use Memory Stick, and have not since 2008.

Here is a list of all the Sony Ericsson phones that use MicroSD instead of Memory Stick.

Only RIM and Nokia have one OS to rule their stable of devices. Symbian and Meego allow Nokia to churn out multiple models at different price points with varying features, but developers need not worry about the underlying hardware. If they need a specific capability like GPS or an accelerometer, the app won't install on a phone that doesn't have it.
I guess this will elicit yawns from US readers, but consider that the 5800 Xpressmusic (a Symbian^1 device) has sold over 10 million so far worldwide.

"but in the consumer market who is going to actually purposefully buy a windows phone?"

Me?

Initial reviews have been good and the development environment for Windows Phone 7 is one of the best I've worked in. Expect lots of great games and apps for this platform.

Dear Slashdot Editors, Your summary is wrong. Gartner predicted that Android will be the second biggest in 2014, just a bit below Symbian, which will still be number 1. Here's a link to a much better article on the subject: http://www.gsmarena.com/smartphone_market_grew_55_percent_ios_declining_by_2014-news-1924.php

Why do people keep making this association? Most smartphones out there are non-touch Symbian phones, and many touchscreen phones are as dumb as it gets.

Why do people keep making this association? Most smartphones out there are non-touch Symbian phones, and many touchscreen phones are as dumb as it gets.

Can't you connect any of the portables via HDMI to a monitor already?

GSMArena lists 13 different phones with an HDMI port, and the trend seems to be increasing. http://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?sFreeText=HDMI

I'm guessing that your phone is a Series 60 device. IYDK, Nokia ported Pythong to their Series 60 platform

Let me support your case better: I have a Nokia 6620, that has a 150MHz TI OMAP-1510 ARM-based SoC and it can run Python. I once had a Nokia 6600 (which has a 104MHz ARM9T and discrete motherboard components, not SoC) and it, too, can run Python.

I'm guessing that your phone is a Series 60 device. IYDK, Nokia ported Pythong to their Series 60 platform

Let me support your case better: I have a Nokia 6620, that has a 150MHz TI OMAP-1510 ARM-based SoC and it can run Python. I once had a Nokia 6600 (which has a 104MHz ARM9T and discrete motherboard components, not SoC) and it, too, can run Python.

One popular seires here is the Nokia E series. It is the business phone class from Nokia and i must say they (the E71 and E72) have supreme build quality and wonderful corporate connectivity. Business has never been keen on the touch fad here in Europe, and most big companies still don't give their employees phones other than Blackberries and Nokias. So i must say Nokia E71 is the seller here together with E72.