In leaps and bounds, the term 'smartphone' is being bandied about by manufacturers, analysts, journalists, developers and end users across the world. Which would normally be a good thing, except that there are many definitions, all totally different. What exactly defines a smartphone in 2010? What did it used to mean in 2007? Or 2003? With reports regularly quoting the word, it would be good to all agree what the word means, surely?

"Thinking about definitions now is all the more appropriate in light of comments like Rob Glaser's, in which he proposes the idea of a 'superphone'. Let's go back to the start of the smartphone era: 2000, the Millennium. Prior to this we'd had PDAs and palmtop computers, plus we'd had mobile phones, both of which could be easily linked by infrared, but the launch of the Nokia 9210 Communicator in 2001 ushered in a dramatic new world - everything in one box for the very first time - powerful handheld computing and connectivity to the world."

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