Defining the Smartphone - part 2 (testing the definition, head to head)

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As mentioned in part one of my Defining the Smartphone feature from earlier in the week, the very word now encompasses a surprising range of hardware, with some claiming that the older phone-like devices are outdated when compared to the modern capacitive touch slabs and that the former shouldn't even be called smartphones. In this, part two, I attempt to quantify the various attributes of two of the extremes from the smartphone world, I take the latest evolution of Nokia's classic S60 slider form factor, the N86, and pitch it head to head with the current highest rated Android smartphone in the UK, the HTC Desire. Will my own smartphone definition hold water?

"What I'd like to do is then, to take a variety of functions, related to the above definition as much as possible, and then see how the Nokia N86 and the HTC Desire fare. It was tempting to take the Nokia N8 as the 2010 tablet form factor example, especially as this is All About Symbian, but this would be misleading, since the N8's primary goals are much the same as the N86's, perhaps not surprising since they're from the same design team. A more accurate comparison would be to take the N86 against the capacitive screened Nokia X6, again Symbian but with a closer spec to the popular conception of a 2010 smartphone. However, several aspects of the X6 (screen size, battery life, use of S60 5th Edition) compromise its claim to be close to being a top end touch-based smartphone, which is why I looked to the HTC Desire and Android - a device which has been almost universally praised. "

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