They might have well started flying a kite in lightning, because this is going to raise some eyebrows. Nokia’s latest blog post on the Conversations site starts out with “My name is Ian and I prefer buttons on my mobile phone.” You can probably guess where the conversation is going, because many people believe that the only form for a smartphone is a touchscreen slab. It should be a good debate!

Your touchscreen devices do, admittedly, look very shiny and minimalist. They look lovely. Really. Well done, you. Pictures look sooo much better on your phone than they do on my quarter-VGA postage stamp of a screen. And that app that you downloaded that makes your Twitter followers into 3D holograms while whistling the national anthem? It’s really clever. I am sure that you are also very successful and have an expensive car.

But listen, right. This is what I care about. Making phone calls. Sending and receiving messages and email. That’s it. And I can do that faster than you. I can also do it with one hand, should I be holding say, an umbrella in the other. Good luck with the rain on your very expensive electronics.

(The blog post also gets bonus points for getting in a Nathan Barley reference).

Of course there are lots of smart things you can do with a kite in lightning (like discover electricity) in exactly the same way that there are lots of reasons to have buttons as the primary interface on a smartphone.

As with everything, there is a lot of personal choice involved in a smartphone, and there are still a number of circumstances where I’ll reach for the perfectly average E75 as my weapon of choice instead of the more flashy and stylish looking X6. I’m expecting a lot of comments that swing between functional and this is what the market expects.

Mind you, the market expected flip phones to be the way forward at one point…

More at Nokia Conversations.