The Quest for the Perfect Form Factor

[slitchfield]

Hopefully pulling no punches, I've been mulling over all the different form factors seen in the smartphone world in the last half dozen years. Is there a common consensus 'perfect' form factor? No. Could there be one in the future? Yes, I argue in The Quest for the Perfect Form Factor. And, to the point, at least one of 2009's smartphone contenders is achingly close, at least in terms of hardware, to the ideal. This being something of a contentious subject, your comments more than welcome of course!

Read on in the full article.

[UKJeeper]

I agree with the spec's you've mentioned. However, to create MY perfect 'form factor' i'd essentially want to see something like the i8910 (or Toshiba's upcoming offering) with the N97's hinge and the E90's 'proper' keyboard.

I've used the 5800's, N810's, Viewty's, etc virtual keyboard and they just don't 'do it' for me. I don't like the loss of screen space while typing either.
The physical keyboards on the E71, Curve/Bold, Treo are just too small for me. (my idea of hell would be trapped with the Pearls keyboard!!!), so the Pre is simply a non-starter for me.

The E75's keyboard is better, but is like the Motorola's (RAZR) type buttons. Somewhere between real and 'virtual'.


So give me a tablet style phone, with large screen, and slide down/N97 keyboard.

Just my 2c.

‘Perfect form factor’ is a misnomer because form factor has more to do with perception that perfection!!!

Again, my choice of the perfect form factor would be the walky-talky from the Original Star-Trek Series which opened with a “Click”, It some how amused me that N97 made the same click when opened.

Shall we say, “History repeats” or “Futures calling”. You decide…..

Suju.

[Antoine of MMM]

Contentious subject indeed

Because we are talking about devices that *must* have physical keys, and haptics are not that advanced beyond vibrating the entire device, I would say that the HTC Touch Pro/N97 are about as close to making everyone happy as things get.

If I had my call though, the Nintendo DSi would probably be best. Fewer buttons, dual screens, folding, etc. You kind of get everything there except the keyboard.

I think that the OLPC 2 will end up being the best (don't remember if it will have haptics or not). But that dual screen book-like mode will pretty much natch it for just about everyone.

It's got to fit easily into a jeans pocket and be strong enough to survive a head to concrete drop, or it just isn't mobile.

[neilhoskins]

I'm holding out for something like an E90 with an internal touchscreen. The N97 is no good because the outside lacks a numeric keypad. The E90 is no good because it doesn't have a touchscreen, which makes web browsing and lots of other things too fiddly.

For me the Palm Prē-like form does it, big touch screen with slide out vertical qwerty keyboard.

iPhone with slightly improved spec gigantic step for apple their first fm radio device ever !!!!! MAN THEY SURE SUCK ALL HAIL ACME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What a lovely picture of the O2 XDA you have

[Richard Ross]

... and that's coming from a current (happy) E71 user and someone whose all-time favourite phone was the 9300 - but for all that those devices offered, the sheer pleasure of using an iPhone/iPod Touch interface really needs to be experienced to be understood.

The engagement with the device is immediate and intimate (odd word I know).

Typing is faster (especially in portrait) than I - an old-school hardware QWERTY guy - would ever have thought possible.

The flexibility offered by the big screen is worth the cost of getting used to yet another input method.

So, for those who generate a lot of content on their devices (text docs, spreadsheets etc) I'd say, try a capacitative slate in the future but NOT now: it can work but the problem is that on the best current example (iPhone) the software isn't there to do what we want to do.

The i8910 may fix that - if so, I'm off to Orange. iPhone 3 in June may fix that - QuickOffice in the AppStore, perhaps.

But I'm worried about the absence of multi-touch on the i8910 (BTW, how does the pictured 3D FPS work with only one-finger to control movement?). iPhone's battery and multi-tasking are weak and, while the N97 looks good, I've never found resistive screens to be responsive enough (although to be fair, the TyTn II and N810 were the last ones I tried for any length of time).

In short: the slate is the future.

Steve - I need that i8910 review. Holding off on a new phone is killing me!

Finally, because I don't post often: thanks for the site and, especially, the podcasts: always informative and often funny too (especially those moments where you can almost hear Steve's eyes rolling at another Ewan pun!)

i feel that having a full touch screen is great, for apps, but when it comes to real usage it isn't anywhere as near as good as having a keyboard

using the bb storm is great for standard phone usage even emails and sms are great on it, better in my view than on the iphone. but when i go on the internet the browser just lets it down compared to the likes of the nokia s60 3rd edition browser where i can just scroll to and click on what i want.

the best design so far for me is the sony ercisson p1 which had both touch screen and keyboard, i know a lot of people prefere the p910 where you had a full screen, with the flip keyboard attachment if you wanted. but the full qwerty split in half made typing far faster than anyhting else i have used.

im waiting on the palm pre where we have the full touch screen to do stuff as you can on the g2 and iphone, but with the option of the qwerty for us old fashioned people who just like the feel of a keyboard allowing us to type quickly

[paker]

I think P990 (without the flip of course) and P1 have the prefect form factor. they both have qwerty (yes a bit tiny but fully functional) and touchscreen(2.8" isn't enough?) and they can be called candy bar with no moving parts too!. what more do you want steve?

Personally, I'd take issue with UKJeeper
as the "sliding keyboard" of the TyTN 2/ N97/ N810 WASTES a lot of keyboard space for *NO DISCERNABLE BENEFIT*!
The E90, slightly WIDER, i.e. about 6.5/7 cm with a touchscreen that comes as close to the edges as possible , without losing the internal VidCam, would be preferable.
I was of the firm opinion that the licensed Psion hinge of the Psion 5/ Revo was a design classic that could never be matched but must say that apart from the "click" as it changes mode, the E90 has a very elegant facsimile.
Thus I'd want a Wider, flatter (less 'brick-like') E90 with an internal WVGA Touchscreen and configurable UI that allows the selection of both larger icons for finger-driven navigation and smaller UI elements/ "buttons" for those of us that prefer to use the Stylus for more PDA-style usage.
The OMAP 3 with the attendant Cortex and associated coprocessors should be mandatory like the Samsung i8910 HD, and the internal flash memory of at least 32 GB should be matched with a 512 MB of RAM, leaving about 372 of RAM free after booting-up. "Demand Paging" should be implemented , and the option of allocating more memory to e.g. the web browser should be user-configurable (within reasonable parameters).
The outer screen could be the e75 or even n95 one but doesn't neeed touch.

Based on the points raised - it seems we need a combination of the form factors.

How about this:
Updated version of the i8910 with 32gb RAM, slide sliding keyboard and detachable front keypad (think like the P800).

Or you can do the same thing with slightly larger keyboard (ala E90) - outside keypad, inside display touch + full keyboard (think Series 60 5th edition E90) but with more memory and CPU.

[jfive]

I agree with the proposed form factor of the future. But knowing how man thinks and our usual dislike of all being the same. There will always be many form factors for the masses. And believes as which today that depending on what and how you plan to use it, will ultimately decide the form factor you choose.